


This is a Song About Somebody Else

by grumpybell



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Minor Violence, Roadtrip (sort of?), Sharing a Bed, Smut, completely unrelated to canon even though it's about the apocalypse, minor smut, reluctant acquaintances to friends to lovers, sort of a zombie apocalypse but without the zombies?, tw: mentions of past physical abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-11-05 20:19:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 34,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11020842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grumpybell/pseuds/grumpybell
Summary: “What do you want?” He asks her, once he's close enough. At this distance she can see the freckles splayed across his cheeks and the way his hair curls at the edges where it's getting longer. It's not surprising that he's wary of strangers, but the iron edge of his voice speaks to something angrier. He's still the best option she's got.“A ride.” Clarke hopes her voice doesn't sound as bone weary as she feels. It doesn't pay to be weak out here. That's a lesson she learned the hard way, the scars of it permanently branded under her ribs.“Not in the market for a traveling companion,” he says, cold and dismissive, and steps around her to hoist the gas cans into the bed of the truck.- - -Surviving was a trick for the apocalypse; finding something worth living for is the trick for after.





	1. Pt. 1 - It's You Right There in the Mirror

**Pt. 1 - It's You Right There in the Mirror**

 

_It doesn't feel like the end of the world until after. That's what Clarke remembers most. There's no defining event, a distinct turning point, or at least not for the world. For Clarke there's just her dad with tears of blood and wild, angry eyes. And then there's his ashes swept away in a gust of wind at his favorite spot in the woods. There's her mother's smooth face and sorrowful eyes. There's Wells' hand against hers, fingers intertwined. And then there's running._

 

* * *

 

She meets Bellamy Blake at an abandoned gas station off I-80, somewhere in Nevada. She notices him from a distance, while she's still a short ways up the road. He has a rifle strapped across his back, a handgun tucked into his waistband, and a black eye. He's exactly the type that Clarke would generally try to avoid. But he also has a rusty, pale blue truck. And Clarke has a pretty badly sprained ankle and hasn't so much as seen another human being in five days. So it doesn't leave her with much choice.

She approaches his truck at a slow limp, while he's inside the station, and props herself up against the side, trying to take some pressure off her ankle while she waits. When he comes back out he has two cans of gas and a pack of cigarettes. He spots her and his steps falter, then pick back up at a faster pace. He's got a determined gait and a hard line to his mouth.

“What do you want?” He asks her, once he's close enough. At this distance she can see the freckles splayed across his cheeks and the way his hair curls at the edges where it's getting longer. It's not surprising that he's wary of strangers, but the iron edge of his voice speaks to something angrier. He's still the best option she's got.

“A ride.” Clarke hopes her voice doesn't sound as bone weary as she feels. It doesn't pay to be weak out here. That's a lesson she learned the hard way, the scars of it permanently branded under her ribs.

“Not in the market for a traveling companion,” he says, cold and dismissive, and steps around her to hoist the gas cans into the bed of the truck.

“I could pay you,” Clarke offers, starting to feel desperate. She'd probably be okay for another night or two; she's willing to bet there's still some nonperishables and bottled water she could scavenge out of the gas station, but who knows how long it would take for another car to stop here?

His eyebrows go up and his gaze slides over her, with her dirty jeans and fraying backpack. “With what?”

The only thing of value Clarke has left is a necklace her parents gave her for her sixteenth birthday, something she swore she'd never part with, and something that doesn't really have any value _anymore_. These days people want weapons or supplies, both of which she's lacking. She doesn't have anything he would want and it's clear he knows it.

Clarke bites down on her lower lip and takes a breath to force the tears that are pricking at the corners of her eyes away. She's not going to let this man see her cry, not when her pride is the only thing she has left. She straightens her shoulders, pushes herself off his truck wincing a little as pain lances up her leg. She's not going to beg. She gets eight painful steps away, shoulders tight, chin up, trying to keep her limp to a minimum before he speaks.

“Wait.”

Clarke meets his eyes. She can't get a read on him at all. The only emotions he's exposed so far have been anger and derision, but there's something she thinks akin to pity just below the surface. It's not much better, in her opinion.

“Get in.” He jerks his head toward the front of the truck.

“I don't need your help,” Clarke snaps, even though she'd asked for it, even though she _does_.

He shrugs. “Fine, but I'm not offering again. So get in or not. I don't give a fuck.” She holds out until he's got the engine running, but only just. And to his credit he waits while she limps around to the passenger side and hoists herself in. He doesn't say anything, only waits for her to close her door and buckle up and then he pulls out of the gas station.

“Where are we going?” Clarke asks him.

He takes a moment to answer, lighting a cigarette and cracking his window. “East.”

Clarke snorts. _Obviously_. He doesn't seem very inclined to talking, so Clarke bites her tongue and leans her head against the window, eyes closed.

“What's your name?” His voice startles her a little after countless minutes of quiet, and when she looks at him he's not looking at her, but straight through the windshield, left hand with the cigarette hanging out the window.

“Clarke,” she tells him and he makes a humming sound in response. She waits a moment, two.

“What, you're not going to tell me yours?” she asks, eyebrows raised. It's false bravado. She's too tired to feel it.

He takes a final drag of his cigarette and then flicks it away. “Bellamy.”

The silence that descends isn't tense, but it feels heavy, full of everything they aren't saying, aren't asking from each other. He clears his throat and lights a new cigarette.

“You know smoking is bad for you,” Clarke comments. Bellamy doesn't say anything, but she swears he almost smiles.

* * *

 

She doesn't even realize she's falling asleep until Bellamy's voice brings her out of a hazy dream that she can't quite remember.

“What?” she mumbles, confused at the sudden darkness.

“Stopping for the night,” Bellamy's words are gruff and emotionless next to her. “You can stay in the truck if you want, but I'm grabbing a bed.”

Clarke blinks, finally managing to orient herself. They're in a parking lot for a Motel 6, one of the scruffy two story ones with all the doors for the rooms on the outside. There are no lights, not that she expected there to be. Some of the doors are hanging loosely on their hinges, kicked in long ago.

“I'm pretty sure they're not open,” Clarke says sarcastically, even as she unbuckles her seatbelt. Her neck is sore from sleeping with her head against the window.

Bellamy doesn't bother to answer, doesn't even look at her. He pops his door open and climbs out, trudging to the bed of the truck while Clarke takes her time to exit her side gingerly. Her ankle is stiff and painful, probably swollen. She bites back a grimace and hitches her backpack higher up her shoulders, taking a steadying breath. It's not a long distance to the hotel, but every move she makes send a sharp pain zinging up her leg. She grips her elbows. It's cool outside, not quite fall, but getting there. The change in temperature is another thing Clarke isn't fully equipped to handle and trying not to think about.

Bellamy comes around the back of the truck holding a solar powered lantern that casts an orange glow across his face. He's got a duffle bag in his other hand. He tilts his chin toward the hotel, an indication she should follow him (or not) and sets off, leaving Clarke to trail after him, gritting her teeth and trying to keep up.

He stops at one of the closed doors and sets the lantern on the ground.

“I'm pretty sure it's locked,” Clarke says, flat. There are plenty of rooms with the doors wide open, so she's not sure why he's chosen this one.

Bellamy holds up a key ring. “Snagged them last time I was through here.” He unlocks the door while Clarke ponders his words. There are many transient people these days, but she hasn't met anyone who seems organized like Bellamy. There were a lot of keys on that key ring. Bellamy shoulders the door open.

The hotel room is musty and full of dust, but the beds are made and it's not half as bad as the majority of places Clarke has slept in the past ten months. Bellamy leaves the lantern on the nightstand between the two beds and drops his duffle bag on one.

“Lock the door behind you,” he comments over his shoulder as he unzips the bag. “We don't want any surprises.”

“What sort of surprises?” Clarke asks, even as she does what he's told her. She got her sprained ankle from an unpleasant surprise. She just hopes she hasn't just locked herself in a hotel room with some sort of organized serial killer. If she has to go, she doesn't want it to be on the floor at the Motel 6. She's had ten months to consider all different manners for her death and this was never on the list.

“There were some Infected hanging around last time I was through here. Could still be.”

Clarke drops her backpack on the floor. “You come here often?”

“Sometimes.” Bellamy shrugs. “Come here.” He waves her toward him.

“What?”

“You need to get off that ankle,” Bellamy says and she notices he's piled a couple of pillows at the end of the bed.

Clarke raises her eyebrows at him.

“Rest, ice, compression, elevation,” he recites. “I do know basic first aid.” There's just a hint of amusement in his tone, more than she's gotten from him so far. He pats the bed and looks at her pointedly, “but seeing as we don't have electricity and it's September, the ice is going to be pretty hard to come by.” He's more relaxed than she's seen him, seems comfortable here, and it makes her more comfortable too. She sits down, toes off her shoes, and swings her legs up on the bed, carefully placing her foot on the pillows.

Bellamy is digging in the duffle bag again, but he glances at her elevated ankle. “You've been doing a shit job at taking care of that.”

“It's almost like I don't have a cushy form of transportation and keys to places to sleep or something,” Clarke snarks at him.

“Scoot down” Bellamy ignores her comment, producing something from the duffle. “ACE bandage,” he explains when she doesn't move. “That's the compression part.”

“You know,” Clarke tells him as she shifts down a little to give him access to her ankle, “Even when you're trying to be nice, you're pretty much still an asshole.”

She only just manages to suppress the urge to flinch when his hand lands on her ankle. It doesn't hurt, she's just not used to anyone touching her, no matter how clinically.

“Are you going to try the nice thing at some point or are you just sticking with asshole?” he shoots back. He works quickly, deftly winding the bandage around her ankle.

“Haven't decided yet,” she responds, watching him finish off the bandage, then pick up his duffle bag and move his things to the other bed. He tosses a blanket at her over his shoulder, which Clarke barely manages to catch.

“You should try to get some sleep,” he suggests, producing a bottle of water, a toothbrush, and a tube of toothpaste from his bag and padding toward the bathroom. “I like to get out of places early.”

Clarke suppresses an annoyed groan. She is not a morning person. Even so, she's out before he comes back from the bathroom. It ends up being the best nights sleep she's gotten in months.

* * *

 

In the next five days all Clarke learns about Bellamy is that he's perpetually grumpy, doesn't appreciate her trying to make small talk, smokes like a fucking chimney, and has keys to hotel rooms or small houses all over the place. She's tempted to ask him about why, about what he's doing and why he seems so familiar with roadside stops. But it's better not to know too much and it's better that he's prickly. She's lost enough people, she doesn't need to care about anyone else. _Don't get attached_.

He doesn't ask her about herself, which she appreciates. If he's curious, he doesn't show it. As far as uninvolved travel companions go, Clarke has hit the jackpot. It's been long enough now that she isn't worried he's going to steal her stuff or leave her behind, but he seems to have no interest in her as a human being whatsoever. If she didn't feel the same way, she might be offended.

It's hard not to fall into a routine, even if it is just to get up and climb in the truck and drive until sundown, only stopping for gas and other supplies. He never asks her how long she plans to travel with him and she never asks him exactly where they're going. It's not really about _where_ for Clarke, it's about _away_. Bellamy is a closed book she's only ever gotten glimpses into and she hopes her psyche is equally impenetrable.

Up to this point, Clarke hasn't questioned Bellamy's stops, but when he pulls into the third Walmart in the past two days, she can't help herself. He's looking for something, that much is clear, because he hadn't taken a thing from the last two.

“Why are we here?” she asks. She doesn't mind the stops, mostly, but it's starting to get dark and in Clarke's experience, being out in the open after dark isn't the smartest move.

“Supply check.”

“We just picked up food and water yesterday,” Clarke protests.

Bellamy shoulders his door open. “You don't have to come. Wait in the truck. I'll only be a minute.” He sets off toward the front doors of the building without waiting for Clarke's reply.

She waits three and half minutes before she goes after him. She feels exposed in the truck, with the sky getting steadily darker. She's still limping, but the swelling has gone down some since Bellamy insisted on her keeping her foot elevated at night.

Unfortunately for her, the Walmart is sprawling, and without the electricity, dark. She hadn't thought to bring a flashlight with her. They usually only stop to fill up on supplies during the day. Bellamy is nowhere to be seen.

“Bellamy?” she pitches her voice louder than she's really comfortable with. It feels too big in the space. She gets no reply.

“ _Bellamy_ ,” she tries again. No answer. The front of the store has the clothing section, which Bellamy seems to have plenty of, so she angles for the back left, where the signs point to camping supplies. It gets darker the closer to the back of the store she gets, and there are items strewn in the aisle from early days of looting. Clarke curses when she twists her ankle stepping on a children's toy. Bellamy's going to hear about it when she finds him.

She catches the sound of footsteps as she approaches the end of the aisle, and she speeds up. “Are you nearly done? I'm going to go back to the truck and hide your cigarettes if you don't get a move on!” Clarke snaps as she turns the corner. Only the man standing before her isn't Bellamy.

Clarke starts to backpedal from the surprise, but her ankle twinges and she nearly falls. The man in front of her is blond, scruffy, and he smiles in a way that makes her stomach knot up from fear. Not Infected, but certainly not someone she wants to know.

 _Run_ , her brain is screaming at her, but she _can't_ , her ankle is too fucked up. She'll never outrun him, and her next instinct is to never turn her back on a predator. She takes another painful step backward.

“Now, where exactly do you think you're going?” he speaks for the first time, his voice harsh and bordering on gleeful. He starts to advance and Clarke takes several more stumbling steps back, but deep down she knows there is nothing she can do to get away from him, not like this.

“Back the fuck off.” Bellamy's voice cuts through air just behind her, sharp and furious, and relief sings through Clarke's body. She thought she'd heard hostile from Bellamy before, but the tone he's using now is downright deadly. He brushes past her as he puts himself between her and the man, handgun pointed at his head.

The man's eyebrows shoot up, but he doesn't look concerned. “Got a pretty girlfriend, there.” He laughs and takes two more steps forward. Bellamy doesn't move. Another step.

“I said back off.”

The man takes yet another step forward, grinning. He's still grinning when Bellamy shoots him in the shoulder. Clarke flinches at the gunshot, deafeningly loud in the the quiet of the store. The man screams, but instead of the bullet stopping him, he surges forward to tackle Bellamy around the waist and they hit the ground hard, gun clattering across the floor and into the dark. The men are tussling on the floor and Clarke casts around desperately for anything that she could use as a weapon, but there's nothing, just towels and bathroom supplies.

The man breaks away from Bellamy, who's sprawled on the floor and turns in Clarke's direction. He's got a knife clutched in one hand now, and she doesn't know when he produced it, how badly he's hurt Bellamy, and all this is racing through her mind as he advances, getting closer every second. Her heart is pounding so hard she can feel it in her head.

Another shot rings out, and for one breathless moment it's like time stops. Then the man crumples to the floor in front of her, a hole straight through his head. Bellamy's kneeling on the floor, blood dripping down his face, gun in his hand.

It takes Clarke an agonizingly long time to limp her way over to him, but it doesn't seem to matter, because he's still kneeling, holding the gun. His eyes are glued to the body on the floor.

“Bellamy?” she puts a hand on his shoulder, unsure.

He turns his head to look at her, slowly, eyes distant. It feels like he's somewhere else entirely. But he's just killed a man to save her, or to save _them_ , and the least she can do is try to bring him back.

“Where are you hurt?” she asks, quiet, fingers stretched out to brush above the cut on his temple. His eyes close, just for a moment, and then he's moving away, staggering to his feet.

“It's not bad. Mostly bruises. I'll deal with it once we get the hell out of here.” His voice is rougher than usual, strained, and even in the low light she thinks she can make out bruises rising on his throat. He doesn't sound dazed, though, and that's an improvement.

Before they make it five feet, Bellamy's sliding an arm around her waist, pulling her arm over his shoulder, and helping her take some weight off her ankle. They don't speak again until Bellamy's helping haul her into the passenger seat of the truck, accidentally smearing his own blood on her jacket in the process.

“Did you at least find what you were looking for?” Clarke asks, her weariness creeping into her voice. Bellamy pauses, still half leaning over her, and his lips twist into a wry smile.

“Yeah, I hope you appreciate your new crutches.”

Clarke blinks, twists around in her seat to look in the bed of the truck where, sure enough, there's a set of crutches nestled between the bottled water and Bellamy's beat up old tent.

“When did those get there?” she questions.

“I brought them out to the truck to find you'd disappeared. Had to go back in to find _you_.” He shuts her door and traipses around to the other side to climb into the driver's seat. It's too dark out to get a good look at him, but she's pretty sure there's blood on his shirt from more than the head wound.

There's a quiet, almost cloudy feeling about the next two hours, like they're happening out of step with the rest of the world. A timeless drive through the dark, the heavy silence in the air, Bellamy insisting she use the crutches on the brief walk to their new hotel room. Time catches up to her when she gets a good look at his face from the light of his lantern, battered, bloody, bruises blooming.

He sits still, uncomplaining, while she cleans the blood from his temple and inspects the several shallow cuts he's got on his arms. He'd gotten lucky, tremendously, absurdly lucky. It makes a hysterical laugh climb up her throat, but she bites it back, breathes deeply through her nose. Now is not the time to lose it, not until she's done with Bellamy's injuries, everything cleaned and bandaged.

He rewraps her ankle, after, and then they both retire to bed, not a word spoken as Bellamy clicks off the lantern, submerging them in sudden darkness. Clarke lies awake, staring at the ceiling, listening to Bellamy's breaths, only feet away in the darkness. _Don't get attached_. It's been her personal mantra since she met him, seemed like it would be easy this time. She lies there, repeats the words in her head, a chant that's already smothered by futility. It's far too late.

She wakes up in the dark, confused, disoriented, the memories of the night coming back to her slowly. It's only after a few steadying breaths that she realizes what woke her. Bellamy's breathing has become ragged, sharp suppressed sobs, muffled by his pillow. This first sign of weakness from him throws Clarke so much that she lies there, unsure of how to react. She can just make out his form in the dark, shoulders trembling. He killed a man, and Clarke is entirely uncertain how to handle it. A part of her thinks she should let is pass, pretend she slept through it, maybe spare him some embarrassment. Bellamy is private. He probably wouldn't want her to know.

Instead, she swing her legs out of bed, balances her weight on her good ankle and crosses the distance between their beds. She hovers, for just a moment, then makes her decision.

“Bellamy?” she lays a tentative hand on his shoulder and his sobs stop immediately, whole body going tense.

“I'm fine,” he says, voice low and scratchy. “Go back to bed, Clarke.”

She considers it, just for an instant, then climbs in the bed behind him instead. “I'll go,” she says softly, “if you really want me to. I just thought...” she lets her hand slide from his shoulder, to his back, rubbing slow circles there, “maybe it would help?”

He's quiet for so long that she almost backs out, feeling heat begin to rise in her cheeks, because maybe she's gone too far offering some physical comfort that he doesn't want. But then he lets out a huge breath, shoulders slumping.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, so quiet she can barely hear it. So she stays, stroking his back, while he cries, quiet at first, then a little louder, and then finally, slowly tapering off into the slow, deep breathing of sleep. She means to get back up, then, crawl back into her own bed, but her limbs feel heavy and Bellamy is warm against her, and sleep takes her before she can so much as lift her hand from him.

This time, she wakes up to Bellamy trying to disentangle their limbs. He's got his eyes cast downward, where he's slowly sliding his leg out from between hers. He's close, much closer than Clarke's been to him before. He looks up, catches her eyes, freezes. It's a long moment, blinking at each other, Clarke thinking that despite the bruises and cuts on his face, she's never seen him look so soft.

She offers him a tentative smile and sits up so she's no longer trapping his arm that had been nestled beneath her neck. He clears his throat and follows her into a sitting position.

“Sorry,” he says, low. “I didn't mean to wake you.”

Clarke shakes her head. “Let's just get the hell out of here,” she suggests. She wants to put as much distance between them and the events of last night as possible. She can't even imagine how Bellamy feels. He nods at her, climbs out of bed and retrieves her crutches from the corner for her.

They head out fifteen minutes later, Bellamy closing the door carefully behind them and locking up. Clarke's even getting used to being awake as the sun rises, something she never thought she'd be able to say. If it weren't for the events of last night hanging over her head, she'd even notice it's a pretty morning, the sky a soft, gentle pink.

Bellamy stops her before she can climb into the truck, hand on her arm, face serious, not even softened by the pale morning light. He holds out one of his hand guns.

“You should have one,” he says, solemn.

Clarke shakes her head. She doesn't want it. “I don't know how to use it, anyway.”

Bellamy stares at the gun in his hand, then tucks it back into his waistband. “Then we're going to fix that.”

* * *

 

 

He means it too, apparently, because he drives them down back roads, cigarette between his lips, until he finds a open field, sheltered by some trees and circled by a dilapidated fence and pulls over. Clarke follows him out of the truck reluctantly. She knows it's irrational, to be more afraid of the gun than of the people she might need to protect herself from, but there's a reason she's never learned to shoot. Bellamy hands her the crutches and grabs a plastic bag out of the back, producing empty food cans and lining them up along the top of the fence.

“Why do you even have these?” Clarke asks, using one of the crutches to point at the line of cans, while he stashes the bag in the back of the truck.

“I'm not about to just leave them strewn about, that's littering.”

“Bellamy, we're literally living in post apocalyptic times.”

He sniffs. “And that's still not a good excuse for littering. Can we get started now, please?” He puts out his cigarette with his shoe.

“That's also littering,” Clarke points out, but he levels a look at her and doesn't respond. She doesn't want to do this, even if she knows all the reasons why she should.

“You don't need to like it,” Bellamy says, and in the afternoon light she can see the horrible purple bruises ringing his neck, a stark reminder of exactly why they're standing in this field. “But it could save your life.”

Clarke presses her lips together, nods. She knows he's right. It was pure luck that Bellamy had found her when he did the day before. If she'd had a gun and known how to use it, she wouldn't have needed him to come to her rescue. She doesn't want to need that.

“Your stance is going to be fucked up right now,” Bellamy says, suddenly all business, gesturing at her crutches, but I can at least teach you how this works. You can practice more later, this is just to get you started.”

He holds out the handgun, waiting for Clarke to take it. She inhales deeply and does so. Bellamy nods. He's so serious like this, firm.

“Don't be afraid of it. It's a tool, Clarke. One that we need to survive.” His lips tilt into the barest hint of a smiles. “There aren't any bullets in it yet. If I'm giving you a gun, you're going to learn exactly how to use it so you don't accidentally hurt yourself or someone else.”

Bellamy is thorough, going through each step in the process, teaching her how to safely check if a gun is loaded, how to load it, stresses the importance of trigger discipline. He's methodical, and somehow both forceful and quiet. He'd have made a good teacher, Clarke can't help but think.

And then she can't think at all because he's pressed up behind her, correcting her grip and how she's holding her arms, hands careful, but decisive on her, and all Clarke can remember is waking up tangled with him, his expression so soft and warm.

She's not sure how she got here, flustered by Bellamy, when the goal all along had been to not give a fuck about him. Clearly he's attractive. That was obvious from the first moment she laid eyes on him, but it hadn't felt important at the time. Someone can be attractive without Clarke being attracted _to them_. This just doesn't apparently apply to Bellamy. Which is really inconvenient, actually.

“You can shoot now,” he says, and his voice is somewhere near her ear. She banishes the shiver that wants to run down her spine and takes a steadying breath.

She misses on her first shot, and her second, and a number she doesn't even bother to count after that, but Bellamy's patient, has her reload the gun, until she finally manages to hit one of the cans, sending it tumbling from the fence. She doesn't expect the triumph that wells up in her chest, a smile rising unbidden to her lips, but then Bellamy's smiling too and it's worth it.

He gives her fifteen more minutes before calling it quits. “We should get back on the road. You can practice some more later.”

“Isn't it a waste of bullets?” Clarke asks him, after they've packed back up and Bellamy's starting the truck.

“If you can't hit anything you're aiming for, there's no point in you having a gun, much less more bullets. The advantage of a gun is not having to get near an opponent in the first place. And that means learning to aim.”

Clarke nearly rolls her eyes at his tone. “Yes, Professor...” the realization is sudden, and startling. “What's your last name?” It seems altogether wrong that she doesn't already know the answer, even though there's no reason she would.

He glances over at her, expression unreadable. “Blake.”

“Bellamy Blake.” It suits him. Not that she's going to give him the satisfaction of telling him that. She can picture exactly what smirk she would get for admitting that. It would certainly not be good for the feelings starting to bubble up in her chest.

“What, you're not going to tell me yours?” Bellamy interrupts her thoughts and he's got an honest to god smile on his face. It takes Clarke a moment to realize why, to understand that he's throwing some of the first words she ever said to him back at her, something she only remembers now because he said it.

She rolls her eyes at him. “Griffin.”

“Nice to officially meet you, Clarke Griffin.”

“You're ridiculous,” she shoots back, but now he's not the only one smiling.

* * *

 

That night she wakes up from nightmares about her father for the first time in months. Clarke does her best not to think about Jake Griffin. When she does, it threatens to overwhelm her. It's easier to run. To not think about it and just keep moving. But lying awake in the dark, she can't shake the image of her father's wild eyes, just days before he died.

She debates with herself for nearly an hour before climbing out of her bed and into Bellamy's. He's not crying tonight. He's not even awake, though he rouses when she curls up next to him, voice rough and heavy with sleep.

“Clarke?”

“Bad dreams” she murmurs, anxious about his reaction. “Do you mind?”

He's quiet for so long that she almost rolls out of the bed and goes back to her own, starting to wonder if it would be possible for them to pretend this never happened. But then he shifts his body so he can wrap an arm around her, pull her in close and tuck her under his chin. It surprises her for only a moment, and then she relaxes, and there's something incredibly comforting about just being held.

“Thanks,” she whispers into his chest, unsure if he'll even hear her.

“Go to sleep, Clarke,” is his only response, and she does, feeling safer than she has since the world started to end.

It's different after that, but only at night. During the day he's exactly the same, reticent, snarky, mostly closed off unless she hits on a topic that sparks something in him, eyes lighting up and words slipping out that he can't seem to stop. For her part, Clarke has given up pretending, at least to herself, that she doesn't care about Bellamy. She didn't mean to do it, but it's past being something she can stop.

At night, that's when things have changed. She starts out in her own bed, the first couple nights after, but it's easier to sleep with Bellamy's warmth at her back and the feeling of safety settling over her, one that she has had so little of in recent months, so she always ends up in his. By the fifth night, she doesn't bother with the pretense of getting into her own bed at all, and he doesn't say anything about it when she slides in next to him. He only angles his body so she can curl up against his chest the way she likes, and that's that.

They should talk about it, Clarke thinks, but she doesn't want to bring it up. She doesn't want to risk disturbing the balance that's finally settled. She's comfortable with Bellamy, with their routine, and trying to discuss it just seems like _asking_ to mess it up. He doesn't seem inclined to bring it up either, so their co-sleeping arrangement goes unmentioned and undisturbed.

They stop at one of those all inclusive stores that sell everything from fish bait to high heels, or at least _used_ to, off I-35 in what Clarke believes is Minnesota to pick up some additional winter clothes. The weather is changing fast, from cool, to downright cold. As far as she can tell, Bellamy has no destination in mind. They're just wandering. That's perfect for Clarke's purposes. She could go home, or she thinks she maybe could, but she doesn't want to.

The store is a bit out of the way, which Bellamy seems pleased about, because it's less picked over than some of the other places they've stopped. Ever since the incident in the Walmart, he's seemed determined to get in and out of places as fast as possible, but a thought strikes Clarke while she's wandering the aisles and so when Bellamy catches up to her, winter coats in hand, and gestures to the door, she ignores him.

“Hold on, I'm looking for something,” Clarke says, heading down an aisle, Bellamy trailing after her, frowning. His forehead crinkles up when he's grumpy, Clarke notes.

“Seriously, what are we looking for, Clarke? If you need tampons, they're on aisle four. You can just _tell_ me. I used to pick them up all the time for my sister, I'm not afraid of them.”

“Have some patience, Blake,” Clarke shoots back, smiling internally that he'd even noted where the tampons were, just in case she needed them. He'd backtrack and deny it if she said anything.

She finds what she's looking for two aisles over, nestled inexplicably between a shelf full of car freshener and a pile of tea cozies. Triumphant, she grabs a box and turns around to wave it in front of Bellamy's face, careful not to drop her crutch. His expression goes from confused to exasperated.

“Ha, ha. Very funny.” He pushes her hand and the box of nicotine gum away from his face.  
“Not actually joking,” she informs him cheerfully, as she starts tossing boxes of the gum into her backpack. She expects resistance from him. She's ready for it.

“Well, you can stock up on as much as you like, I'm not using it.”

Clarke rolls her eyes, finishes clearing the shelf and zips up her backpack. “You lived through the apocalypse. I'm not losing you to lung cancer.”

She hadn't meant to say it like that, as if he was hers to lose. He notices, too, if the way his shoulders go stiff and the muscle in his jaw jumps, but he doesn't mention it. He shakes his head at her.

“Can we just get out of here now?”

Outside in the parking lot Bellamy pauses before climbing into the truck, face turned to the sky. It's bitterly cold, a sharp wind catching in his curls.

“What is it?” Clarke calls from her seat inside the truck.

“Snow.” Bellamy swings into his seat, lips pressed into a hard line. “There's a winter storm coming, and we're going to want to be somewhere we can ride it out.”

* * *

 

_As far as Clarke knows, they never identified patient 0. It was slow at first, enough so that by the time anyone realized how serious it was, it was too late. Too late for so many people, too late for Clarke's father, too late for a cure. She would hesitate to call the people who get sick zombies, because they're not like anything she's seen on TV. They aren't abnormally strong or fast. They aren't more difficult to kill than any human. They're just... angry. And violent. They forget who they are; they forget who they love. Then they die. There were whispers, whenever someone new became infected, and that became the name for them, Infected. It might as well have been Doomed._

_It spreads fast, one day something far away, too far to touch Clarke in her stately home in South Carolina, the next it's on her doorstep. It's her father coughing up blood. She hadn't really believed it at first, that once you get it, there's no cure. There's just death. It had become a reality fast. Not just for Clarke, but for 85% of the world. They called people like Clarke lucky, naturally immune. But Clarke isn't so sure. It's a different kind of hell, this world after the end._

 


	2. Pt. 2 - The Truth is like Blood Underneath Your Fingernails

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy's face has gone pensive, a small crease between his eyebrows. Clarke suspects, from the slight downward turn of his lips and the faraway look in his eyes, that she knows exactly who he's thinking about.
> 
> “Tell me about her?” it's not a demand, but a tentative request. It's one she's not sure he'll grant. Bellamy might be softer here, but he's still an enigma.
> 
> He's quiet for a long moment. “Octavia was...” he seems to be weighing his words, “someone who always had something to prove.”

**Pt. 2 - The Truth is like Blood Underneath Your Fingernails**

 

_Clarke's dad had wanted her mother to work on the cure, when the first reports of people getting sick and violent and dying en masse had shown up on the news. Abby had brushed him off, too busy, and it was too far away. She'd changed her tune when it became clear, the scope of what they were dealing with. But it was too late by then, for Clarke's father and millions of other people._

_There was no cure, but there was an immunity, one that Clarke had in her blood. One that Abby Griffin had managed to turn into a vaccination that effectively stopped the spread. It hadn't been enough, not for Clarke, not when the ghost of her father and her best friend were around every corner. Her mother might be a national hero, but Clarke couldn't stand one more minute in her house. So she'd run._

* * *

 

It's different, the place Bellamy chooses to weather the storm. She realizes it long before they actually get there. The first clue is Bellamy himself, the way his shoulders seem to get tighter with every passing minute, his jaw clenched so intensely he's practically grinding his teeth. Then it's the fact that they've left the main roads, and are winding themselves deeper and deeper into the the woods. Wherever they're going, it's not somewhere you come across accidentally.

She doesn't ask. Bellamy is keyed up, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, and Clarke thinks he'd be more likely to snap, than give her real answers. She trusts him, but it's unsettling to see him this nervous. She props her bad ankle up on his dashboard and closes her eyes, tries to ignore Bellamy next to her.

She never truly falls asleep, but drifts somewhere just short of it until they hit gravel roads, and the sound jerks her awake. They're far from civilization at this point, and Clarke can't help but question why. If Bellamy's right, and there is a storm coming, it could take them days to get out of here.

“Where are we?” she finally asks, when they pass the first cabin and keep going until it disappears from view.

“Just outside Voyageurs National Park,” Bellamy says, as he pulls the truck up to a second cabin, tucked away behind some trees.

“Why?”

He hesitates, “I used to live here.” He gets out of the truck before she can ask anything else. He seems determined not to meet her eyes as they unpack the truck. Bellamy carries most of the bags, since Clarke's still on her crutches.

It's dark inside, a little musty, but it's so much bigger than the hotel rooms they've been staying in, Clarke can't help but marvel at it a bit. The front room is an austere kitchen, simple lines, completely unadorned, attached to a cozy looking living room. There's a low, worn couch and a big arm chair, facing a large fireplace.

Clarke drops her backpack on the floor by the door and wanders into the living room, curious. She notes the scuff marks on the coffee table, which is littered with books. They appear to be overflow from the floor to ceiling bookshelf against the wall. There's a tv over the fireplace, and a couple of framed photographs on the mantle. One is turned face down.

She can't help herself, she flips it up to take a look. It's Bellamy, looking young and innocent, with a headful of unruly curls and a blinding smile. He has his arm around a girl, younger, with sharp, striking features, and an even sharper smile.

“Octavia.” Clarke jumps at the low rumble of Bellamy's voice just behind her. “My sister.”

She sets the photo down carefully, the way she found it, and turns around to face him, more of an awkward shuffle with the crutches. His face is closed off in a way that reminds her of the very first day she met him. Bellamy is a closed book much of the time, but she'd been starting to get a peek at some of the pages. Right now, she can't see past the front he's put up.

“Sorry,” Clarke murmurs. He doesn't _look_ angry, but she's sure he doesn't appreciate her snooping in his private life.

His shoulders slump a little. “Doesn't matter, she's all over this place.”

She almost bites off her response, but it escapes before she can. “Why did we come here?”

Bellamy frowns, runs a hand through his hair. “It's the only place I have enough supplies for us to deal with a storm. And we've got our own generator so,” his lips turn up infinitesimally.

“Electricity?” Clarke guesses, unable to keep the excitement out of her voice. Electricity means bright lights and hot water and warm food.

“Yeah.” He jerks his head toward the back. “I put your stuff in the extra room. You should unpack while I get the generator running, figure out what laundry you want done tomorrow.”

Laundry. Clarke hasn't had the luxury of properly doing laundry in months. She almost forgot it existed. This really is different from any place they've stayed, any place _Clarke_ has stayed.

Clarke finds her things in a room just down the hallway on the right. She explores a little, finds there are two bedrooms and one bathroom, complete with separate shower and tub. She can't help grinning to herself. If she were Bellamy, she never would have left. As soon as she thinks it, she knows it's a lie. She ran from a comfortable home, from ghosts. It seems he did the same.

They eat spaghetti for dinner that night, under the glow of electric lights. Clarke hasn't had a warm meal in months, and it fills her up fast, sits heavy and satisfying in her stomach. Meanwhile, Bellamy's gone quiet, barely said two words since he mentioned his sister. She can see on his face that he's got his walls back up. Clarke wishes she knew how to slip past them, but she hasn't quite figured that out yet. When he gets like this, all she's been able to do is is wait him out.

He goes to bed early, only stopping to tell her the water tank will be fully heated by the morning, then disappears into the back bedroom, closing the door with a decisive click. Clarke stays up for a while, browses the books on the bookshelf in the living room. It's full of history, mythology, some classics. She takes a book of fairytales to her room, reads until her eyelids feel heavy, then curls up in the softest bed she's slept on since her own.

But then, in the dark, it's too quiet. She can't hear Bellamy breathing next to her like she's used to, can't hear him roll over, shuffling for a comfortable position. The dark, the quiet, the absolute awareness that she's alone, it's all suffocating. She tries to sleep for at least an hour, but it's useless. She's come to rely on not being alone.

Clarke stands outside Bellamy's door for what has to be five minutes before she gets up the nerve to open it. It feels daunting, here where they have their own space, to invade his, particularly with the mood he's been in. She could lose a night of sleep, it wouldn't be the end of the world. She opens his door anyway.

He doesn't say anything, but when she approaches the bed, she can see his eyes are open, lying on his back, blinking at the ceiling.

“Bad dreams?” he asks, low. There's a sudden rush of relief that comes with his question. And she doesn't hesitate to crawl into his bed, rest her head on his chest, where she can hear his heartbeat, slow, calm.

“No,” she whispers, curling an arm around his waist and tilting her chin so she can see his face. “It was too quiet.”

Bellamy huffs, swallowing a surprised laugh. “Thought you'd be dying to get some time away from me.” It's a joke, but it falls a little flat, a little too sincere, like he can't really understand why anyone would want to spend much time with him.

Clarke worries her lip, unsure. “Not yet.” If she weren't already looking at him, she would have missed the barest hint of a smile that passes over his lips.

* * *

 

She catches Bellamy chewing the nicotine gum two days after they get to the cabin. She wakes up earlier than she normally would, immediately aware of the absence of Bellamy's warmth in the bed. She's yet to spend a night in the guest room. She can't see a reason why she would in the future.

Clarke's decidedly _not_ a morning person, but she's awake and oddly alert for the hour, so she drags herself out of bed and heads for the kitchen. She expects Bellamy to be in the living room, like he has been the past two mornings, feet up on the coffee table, nose buried in a book. Only he's not there.

There's a pot of coffee in the kitchen, so Clarke pours herself a cup and wraps one of the quilts from the sofa around her shoulders and wanders out onto the porch. It's really the only place he could be, and sure enough, there he is, sitting on the wooden porch swing, gazing out at the woods.

The storm had come the first night at the cabin, leaving behind long, sharp icicles clinging to the edges of the roof and at least two and half feet of snow. Clarke has yet to set foot in it, though she'd spent the whole first morning camped out on the porch marveling out how bright and clean and soft it made the world feel.

“You're up early,” Bellamy comments, as she slides in beside him and offers him part of her blanket. He has to shift closer to take it, his thigh pressed against hers as he pulls it around his shoulders. He's softer here, in this place wrapped in his memories. Not happier, she doesn't think, but less angry, now that he's settled in.

“Coffee?” She offers him her mug.

He shakes his head and points at his mouth. “Gum.”

“You have gu- _Oh_.” Clarke swats a hand half heartedly at his chest. “What happened to 'you can stock up, but I'm not using it'?”

Bellamy grins, not quite a true smile, but something close. “You know, it turns out smoking is actually bad for you.”

“You're an asshole,” she complains, but she's biting back a smile of her own. He doesn't respond, and they fall into a comfortable silence. It's a beautiful morning, blue skies, bright sun, crisp air. The snow is blindingly white, ice glittering on the trees. She likes this, just being with him, and that probably won't end well for her, but she can't help it.

Bellamy's face has gone pensive, a small crease between his eyebrows. Clarke suspects, from the slight downward turn of his lips and the faraway look in his eyes, that she knows exactly who he's thinking about.

“Tell me about her?” it's not a demand, but a tentative request. It's one she's not sure he'll grant. Bellamy might be softer here, but he's still an enigma.

He's quiet for a long moment. “Octavia was...” he seems to be weighing his words, “someone who always had something to prove.” He doesn't say anything else, and Clarke knows better than to push him. It's a surprise he gave her that much.

“How long do you think we'll be here?” Clarke changes the subject. She doesn't know what they story is with Octavia, but she's pretty sure it's one he's not ready to tell yet. Maybe he won't ever be. She craves that, to be the person he could confide in and she's trying hard not to think about exactly why.

Bellamy clears his throat. “Bare minimum a week.” He gives her a sidelong glance. “Got somewhere to be?”

Clarke elbows him in the side. “Funny.” They probably _should_ discuss this at some point, what's in the future. She can't just hitch a ride with him forever. It would be a lie to say Bellamy is the only person left in the world that she cares about, but he is the only one she can stomach being around right now. She has no idea how long it will be before that changes.

“Breakfast?” Bellamy interrupts her thoughts. Clarke takes the escape he's offering and follows him back into the kitchen.

* * *

  

She lets slip that she's never really seen snow before over lunch. Bellamy blinks at her for a good ten seconds, before abandoning his food to dig what appears to be an entire winter catalogue's worth of clothing out of a back closet.

“This really isn't necessary,” Clarke tells him for the third time as he's bundling her into a fourth layer.

“Snow is cold, Clarke,” Bellamy says in what Clarke has come to deem his “amused teacher” voice.

“I mean going out there.”

“A snow day is a rite of passage,” is all Bellamy says in response, busy zipping his own coat. She might argue harder, but it's the brightest she's seen Bellamy... well, ever. He's smiling, _excited_ , and it's in such high contrast to his withdrawn melancholy that morning, Clarke's not going to be the one who ruins it.

He's right. Snow _is_ cold, not that Clarke didn't _know_ that, but it's a little different knowing it and feeling it seep slowly past all the layers Bellamy had insisted she wear. It's also not as soft as Clarke was expecting. But there's something magical about it too, out there in a world that's gone totally white and clean, sound muffled. Stepping into the snow for the first time is like a moment removed from time, untouched by everything else. It's made even better by the fact that, after a forty five minute argument, she'd managed to convince Bellamy she was fine to walk without the crutches for at least a while.

Bellamy lets her lead him around outside, while she marvels at the ice in the trees, and the crunch of snow under her boots, a little amused smile at the edges of his lips. Clarke thinks it's sort of sweet of him until he ambushes her with a giant snowball, and then it's just war. For the next hour, for possibly the first time, Clarke forgets about the world falling apart.

She might be new at this whole “snow day” thing, and she might still have half a limp, but that doesn't stop her from securing Bellamy's surrender in the snowball fight out of sheer willpower. She's significantly less successful in building a snowman.

“You're being too impatient,” Bellamy warns her. “You have to make sure the base is compact and solid before you add another section.”

Clarke sticks her tongue out him, as if her snowman isn't literally collapsing as she does so. Bellamy's, of course, turns out perfect, the patient bastard, albeit with a makeshift face made of some pebbles and a somewhat terrifying icicle nose.

“We used to do this every year,” he comments, absently, as he searches for sticks for arms, and Clarke doesn't look up from the pile of snow that is her “snowman,” unsure.

“After we'd go inside for the day, Octavia would sneak back out and knock mine over.”

“Why?”

Bellamy shrugs, discarding a stick and picking up another. “Probably because mine were usually better, and she liked being the best; in most things she was.” The way he talks about Octavia is so... bittersweet, and Clarke doesn't really know how to deal with it. The people she's lost... the ones she has no chance of getting back, they're all people she feels nothing but absolute love and adoration for. And it's clear Bellamy feels that for Octavia, but... there's something else, something that clings to the edges, too private for Clarke to ask about.

She's saved from answering by Bellamy finding what he dubs the “perfect” arms for his snowman and then proceeds to smugly point out that her snowman is little more than a heap of snow. Clarke manages to get in a great shot to Bellamy's chest with a snowball in retaliation, which devolves into a miniature version of their earlier snowball fight, but they're both too cold and Clarke's ankle too weak to continue for long.

They leave their boots on the front porch and hang their outer layers up to dry in the bathroom, shivering, noses red and stinging from the change in temperature. Bellamy insists Clarke take first shower and by the time she gets out and bundles herself in sweatpants and an oversized sweater, Bellamy's made hot tea with honey and has a roaring fire going in the fireplace. She falls asleep on the sofa while Bellamy is in the shower and only wakes after the sun has long gone down and Bellamy is at the stove, humming to himself.

His surprisingly good mood lasts all through dinner and into the late evening, when Clarke gets excited about the DVD boxset of Friends she finds in a box under the TV. Bellamy rolls his eyes at her, but doesn't protest when she puts it on.

“Look, I haven't watched a TV in ten months,” Clarke grumbles at his teasing, mostly out of reflex. Everything about the day has soft edges, Clarke thinks, something none of them have been able to afford in a long time. And maybe that's why she feels the need to be close to him, but she doesn't fight her instinct to settle right up against him and slip an arm around his waist. It feels a little like a risk, because even though they've been sleeping wrapped around each other every day for over a week, there's something very different about it outside of their room and the excuse of sleep.

For Clarke, it feels like a calculated risk, but if Bellamy is bothered, he doesn't show it, only readjusts his angle slightly so they can fit together a little more comfortably. It almost makes her want to cry, because she honestly has a hard time remembering the last time she was in a place where casual affection existed. But somehow, after the end of the world, here she is, watching a DVD and cuddling with a cute boy. It's almost enough to forget what's waiting at the end of the snowstorm.

* * *

 

They spend three days reading Bellamy's books and watching old DVDs and arguing about whether or not Clarke is cheating at cards (she is). Clarke's aware that the snow outside is slowly melting, becoming less of a barrier between the cabin and the rest of the world every single day, but she doesn't like to think about it. There's no responsibility here, no thinking about what would happen if she went home, about the conversation she should have with her mother. She doesn't feel like the ghost of her father and Wells have followed her here and that is the first time she's ever felt that way. She wants to hold onto that, live the rest of her life in a snowstorm where nothing can touch her.

Bellamy is different. He swings between bright and teasing, possibly content, to deeply contemplative and almost scarily quiet. Clarke is sure it has to do with the memories of Octavia the cabin comes with, but she hasn't figured out how to broach the subject with him. She doesn't know how she can ask him to share his past when she's not ready to share hers. It's not that she doesn't trust him with it... or mostly. It's just, she's never had to voice it, not all of it. Before she left home, everyone _knew_. And since she was on her own entirely, she hasn't talked about it, and talking about it makes it feel real in a way that she's still not ready to face. It's exactly what she ran away from. Maybe Bellamy feels the same way. She doesn't want to push. There's something about it, the look he gets in his eyes, that doesn't feel familiar to her, though.

On the fourth morning, she wakes up to Bellamy tossing and turning, forehead bunched up in distress, murmuring in his sleep. Most of what he says is unintelligible, and Clarke hesitates, unsure if she should wake him, but then he makes this sound in the back of his throat that's so wounded that her heart nearly stops.

“I'm _sorry._ ” Those two words are so clear, so full of emotion, and Clarke can't bear to let it continue, so she puts a firm hand on his shoulder.

“Bellamy.” He's generally easy to wake, always on alert, but it takes calling his name three times before he finally opens his eyes, and for one moment, it's like he doesn't know where he is. He flinches away from her, reaching for a weapon that isn't there, before the recognition passes over his face. Clarke sits back, sensing he might need some space.

“Sorry,” he isn't looking at her, and though it's not the impassioned plea he'd uttered only moments before, Clarke feels it. She doesn't know where his pain comes from, but she wants to draw it out, take it away, but she doubts he would let her. Bellamy carries pain like it's a mantle he's destined to bear.

“Are you okay?” she asks, instead.

He nods, runs a hand through his hair, finally looking at her. “Just old ghosts.”

“Octavia?”

His grimace is enough of an answer. He seems to be debating with himself on whether to say more, but then he looks away again and climbs out of bed. “I'm going to get some air.”

Bellamy is halfway to the bedroom door before she gathers the courage to voice what she's been wanting to say for days.

“It's not just... there's something there, with her, that's not just sadness.” She doesn't phrase it as a question, but she's looking for an answer, because she hasn't been able to pinpoint it, that other emotion that's always there when Octavia comes up, something that makes him look so haunted. Clarke's lost people too, but this is different.

“No,” he says, quiet, back to her. “I'm angry with her.” He leaves the room quickly after that, and Clarke feels sure he doesn't want her to follow him.

She falls into a fitful sleep, fighting the urge to go check on Bellamy. She understands needing some space to work through things, but she also hates giving it. She wants to _fix_ it, the things that keep him up at night, and she knows it's irrational and impossible, but that doesn't stop her from wanting to fix it anyway. Clarke is always itching to _do_ something, and if she can't, she usually runs. But this isn't her problem, it's Bellamy's, and that makes it so much harder. When dawn starts to break, she gives up on sleeping and climbs out of bed.

She finds Bellamy out on the porch again, hands and nose red from the cold. He doesn't fight the blanket she drapes around his shoulders, but he doesn't acknowledge it either.

“You're going to get sick if you stay out here too long.”

He makes a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat, eyes on the treeline. Clarke sits next to him, close enough that she can feel how cool his skin is.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks, finally, because she has no idea what else to do. She's never been the pep talk type and she's starting to learn her way around Bellamy, but even though he's had mood swings, the dark expression on his face is deeper than usual.

“No.”

“Okay.” Clarke takes one of his hands, wincing at how frigid it is. How long has he been out here? “But, you know you _can_ , if you want to, right?”

He looks at her, finally, and after a moment, his expression softens visibly. There's something, about the way he's looking at her, soft, but so sure, and before Clarke has a chance to analyze it, she leans forward and kisses him. It's a short kiss, chaste, but for the few brief moments it lasts, he kisses her back.

Of course she's immediately worried she's made a terrible mistake. This probably isn't what he wanted and almost definitely not what he needed at the moment. It had just been... the way he was looking at her and the fact that she wanted nothing more than to draw him out of this mood. She keeps her eyes closed longer than necessary as she leans back, and when she opens them she can't read the expression on his face at all.

“Should I not have?” is the only thing she can think to say, nervous. At least the shadows are gone from his eyes, if she did one thing, she accomplished that. Even if she'll never be able to live down her terrible timing for a kiss. But his lips turn up in a half smile and his hand tightens on hers, a comforting gesture. His fingers are too cold, but she doesn't pull away.

“Only if you didn't mean it.”

For once, Clarke doesn't try to hide her smile. “I meant it.” The panic of the confession sets in moments later. She doesn't know how to let the moment just be, it feels too heavy. “But I also mean it when I say you need to get your butt inside and sit by the fire until your extremities stop feeling like icicles.”

Bellamy rolls his eyes and grumbles, but he lets her haul him up. “I'll have you know that my _extremities_ are all in working order.” She elbows him in the stomach.

Despite her best efforts, Bellamy's dark mood creeps back in over the course of the day and neither of them have said a word about the kiss. He grows steadily quieter throughout the afternoon and the stupid jokes she makes that normally get her at least a little smile and sometimes spur him to just openly mock her, aren't getting any reaction at all. She knows it's about his dream and she knows that's about Octavia, but he's obviously not ready to talk about her. He clearly needs _something_ , but Clarke's pretty sure this time it's going to take something other than an impromptu kiss to pull him back, but she's at a loss for what.

She's attempting, and mostly failing, to read The Fountainhead while Bellamy plays what is probably his hundredth round of solitaire. Unfortunately, The Fountainhead is not at all to Clarke's taste and after reading the same paragraph four times, she puts the book down.

“Want to play poker?” she suggests. Bellamy startles, apparently having been lost in thought.

“What?”

“Poker? You can try to prove I'm cheating?”

He doesn't even crack a smile. “Actually, I think I'm going to take a walk.” The tone he says it in leaves no room for her to suggest she come with him. She would be hurt, if she thought any of this was about her, but she knows it's not. She fights the desire to get something else out of him.

“Try not to freeze,” is what she settles on. She thinks he almost, _almost_ smiles at that.

Of course, when he's not back after four hours she goes from mildly worried to flat out panic. It's dark out and Clarke's the type to mentally jump to the worst case scenario. He could have fallen and hurt himself. He could have run into a bear in the woods (they have bears around here, right?). Maybe he'd gotten lost and is _actually_ slowly freezing to death.

Two hours after the sun goes down, she starts suiting up to go after him, which is probably another one of her terrible ideas. She doesn't know the terrain even a fraction as well as Bellamy, it's pitch dark out, and her ankle has just now healed enough that she isn't having to haul her crutches around with her.

It takes her fifteen minutes to get on all her Bellamy approved layers, and another five to find a flashlight. She takes a deep breath, tromps to the front door, and pulls it open. Bellamy is standing on the other side, hand out to turn the knob.

Clarke blinks at him for a moment. “You asshole!” she hits his chest with her fists, but they bounce ineffectually off his many layers.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Bellamy's eyebrows have disappeared into his mess of curls.

“You scared the hell out of me!” Clarke yells at him, and the relief is so strong, but there is no way she's letting him off easy. “It's been _hours_! Do you understand that? Anything could have happened?!”

“Why are you dressed like the Michelin man?” Bellamy asks, poking at her coat. She swats his hand away.

“Because I was going to look for _you_ , you idiot! Do you even know what time it is?!”

“It's like eight o'clock, Clarke.”

“Whatever,” she dismisses him, “It's been dark for _hours_ , Bellamy!”

“That flashlight doesn't even have batteries in it,” he tells her, grinning. “You didn't check it, did you?”

Clarke considers throwing it at him. “You are _such_ a fucking asshole,” she snaps. And this time when she kisses him, she kisses him hard.

It takes him a moment to catch up, but when he does, he slides a hand into her hair and one around her waist, pulling her against him. Or... as against him as he can with the countless layers they're both wearing. He pushes them over the doorstep, so he can close the door, finally, and fumble with the zipper of her coat. He gets through her coat and two sweaters without stopping kissing her, but then he hits the third sweater pulls back.

“Seriously, how many fucking layers are you wearing?”

“You're the one who taught me the importance of being properly dressed for snow, so you have no one to blame but yourself,” Clarke snarks, hoping her face isn't bright red from how hard her heart is beating. She's making out with Bellamy. Or she was. The absurd amounts of clothing they're both wearing had stalled that out a bit.

“You just get out of your clothes and I'll get out of mine,” she suggests.

“Wow, romantic.”

“Shut the fuck up, Bellamy.” He grins, leans in to kiss her again, before following orders, discarding his coat and reaching for the hem of his hoodie. Clarke strips down to her bottom layer of a long sleeved shirt, just as he gets to his, and meets her eyes. Something warm and unbearably fond rises in her chest with the way he's looking at her.

“Better?” he asks. Clarke kisses him in answer and they work their way over to the sofa, landing in a slightly less than graceful tangle of limbs that makes Clarke giggle. Bellamy kicks his boots off, and Clarke tries to follow suit, and...

“Wait. I double knotted my shoe laces,” Clarke says against his lips, trying, and failing, to kick off her snow boots.

Bellamy rolls away from her, onto his back, and then he starts laughing. It's a deep, unrestrained laugh, and if she wasn't busy fumbling with her shoe laces, she'd marvel at how it's the first time she's ever heard him laugh like that.

“Do you believe in signs?” he asks, between breaths.

“What?” she's got her right boot off now, and he's propped himself up onto an elbow to watch her.

“I'm just saying, if the difficulty of this whole process is meant to be a sign, things aren't looking great for us.”

Clarke tosses her left boot at him, which he bats easily away. “I don't believe in signs.”

He grins. “Good. Me either.”

They make out on the sofa for twenty minutes and get down to their underwear, but it turns out the width of Bellamy's sofa isn't really ideal for anything beyond light kissing. The second time Clarke nearly falls off the sofa, yelping and clutching at Bellamy's arms for balance, he can't hide the smile that spreads across his face.

“You wanna go to the bedroom?” he asks, voice low and fond. There's more to the question than the surface, she knows that, and so she lets herself really think about it. It's going to change things, but... well, even this probably already has. It just doesn't feel different. It feels surprisingly normal to be wrapped up in his arms, and to be fair, it _is_. There are just less clothes involved than usual.

“Yeah. Let's go.”

Bellamy trips over Clarke's discarded boots on the way to the bedroom, cursing. “Those things are a fucking menace,” he grumbles, glaring down at them. He looks like he's contemplating taking the time to move them, so Clarke unhooks her bra and throws it at him in a bid to get his attention back. It proves incredibly effective, his eyes going dark and hungry.

It would be a lie to say that Clarke hadn't _ever_ thought about Bellamy naked in the few weeks she's known him, but she'd spent most of it actively avoiding entertaining those thoughts about him. She wasn't even supposed to be his friend, much less... whatever this is. It hardly matters; in this case reality clearly beats fiction. Bellamy is all miles of gorgeous freckled brown skin and she wants take the time to trace every single freckle.

“You're staring,” Bellamy says, rolling her underneath him and kissing at her jaw.

“Yeah. I got so distracted by the whole 'nerdy mom friend' vibe it's become clear you have recently, that I forgot you're actually really hot.”

“Wait. Mom friend? _Mom_ friend?” Bellamy looks adorably put out.

“I'll explain later,” she whispers, trying to distract him with a kiss.

“Or you could explain now?” He urges when she comes up for air. He looks about ready to insist, so Clarke slides a hand down over his stomach and wraps her fingers around his cock.

“Later,” he immediately says, breathless. “Later is good.”

“That's what I thought.” And her tone must be sufficiently smug, because he bites at her bottom lip just hard enough to sting. She works her hand up and down his length while they kiss, swiping her thumb over the tip, until eventually he pulls away.

Bellamy kisses his way down her stomach to settle between her thighs. He pauses, looking up at her, and Clarke's heart is so full. He presses a kiss to her hip.

“Okay?” he asks, earnest, gentle. And it's that, right there, the look in his eyes and the sincerity of his voice that puts to rest any doubts Clarke had about all this, about the change this will bring in their relationship and her obsessive need to have everything sorted into perfect mental boxes with neatly printed labels. This, this exact moment, she finds peace.

“Yes.” And then he puts his mouth on her.

She tries to keep her eyes open, because she wants to watch, wants something to confirm that this is real, and that this man who she stumbled across and came to care for is really here with her, is the one who is setting her bones on fire. But she can't, not when he curls two fingers into her and hits that spot that makes her shudder, breath hard to grasp. So she comes with her eyes closed, and Bellamy's hand a comforting anchor on her hip, something to tether her to reality as she comes down.

She pulls him back up, curls her fingers into his hair while she kisses him, languid. He trails slow hands down her sides as he kisses her, applying just enough pressure that she feels grounded, steady.

“Condom?” she asks him, and he drops a kiss to the tip of her nose, before rolling away to open his nightstand.

Clarke props up onto an elbow. “You don't even have to get out of bed? That's a bit presumptuous,” she comments, no heat in her voice.

“Shut up, these have been here longer than I've even known you.” Clarke takes the condom out of his hand and rolls it on him herself, leaning forward to kiss him.

“Yeah? You're sure they're not expired?”

Bellamy huffs against her lips at her teasing. “You really know how to kill a mood, you know?”

Clarke gives an obvious glance down. “You don't seem that bothered.”

Instead of answering her he pushes her back against the pillows and settles himself in the cradle of her hips. Clarke clings to his shoulders when he presses into her, slow, patient. She's glad. She's only ever been with one other guy, over eight months ago, and he hadn't been as well endowed as Bellamy.

“Okay?” he asks again, and she is so much more than okay, so _full_ physically, emotionally, everything, but she doesn't even know how to voice that, so she only nods and urges him on by rocking her hips into him.

And for this, she does keep her eyes wide open, forehead to forehead with him, sharing breath, sharing space, sharing everything.

* * *

 

She wakes up a little after four in the morning, according to the clock on the nightstand, and for a few groggy moments, she's unsure of what woke her, but she slowly comes to the realization that Bellamy's breaths aren't the long, slow breaths of someone asleep. She tilts her head to see his face and she can just make out the reflection of the moonlight in his eyes. He's awake, staring at the ceiling, presumably lost in thought.

“Hey,” she mumbles into his arm, too lazy to move away and put more space between them. She likes him like this.

“Hey,” he murmurs, rubbing at her back. “Did I wake you up?”

“I don't think so.” She readjusts herself so she can see his face a little better, slides a hand across his abdomen. There's a scar on his ribs, not long, but brutal. She traces a finger over it. “Are you okay?” she asks.

“Yeah. Just thinking.” His voice has that distant quality again, and she doesn't know what causes this, for him to disappear into his head and come back worse for wear.

“About what?”

“You called me a Mom friend and then immediately slept with me. You don't think that's kind of weird?” he jokes, clearly deflecting.

“Funny.” She's still got that scar under her fingers. “How did you get this?”

Bellamy goes tense under her hands, muscles stretched taut, but then slowly he relaxes.

“It's a long story. How much time have you got?” His voice is dry.

“I don't know, all the time in the world, I guess.” Bellamy snorts, puts his hand over Clarke's and slides their fingers together. She thinks that's going to be the end of it, but then he speaks, voice gone solemn.

“My mom was never very good at parenting. She was never really any good at taking care of herself, to be honest. She had me young, married my dad when she was seventeen. I don't remember him much. He was in the army and never made it home from his second tour. I was only four. I just have little bits of memories. He laughed a lot; he was terrified of spiders; he loved to read. If he was home, he'd read to me at bedtime, adventure stories, things Mom thought I was too young for. After he died, she fell apart. I didn't understand depression at the time, but hers lasted for years. And I... well, I looked like my dad, so I think she saw me as this constant reminder of his ghost.” Bellamy pauses, like maybe he'll leave it at that. Clarke squeezes his fingers, a silent encouragement. He clears his throat.

“When I was six, Mom got pregnant with O. I never met her dad, and I don't even know if Mom knew who he was. If she did, she never talked about him. She was still heavily depressed and after she gave birth it just got worse. Octavia came early, and she wasn't a healthy baby. She was sick a lot of her childhood. If there was something going around, she'd catch it.

“Octavia was always kind of mine to take care of. Mom couldn't get out of bed a lot days, so I had to. But I was a kid, and I didn't really know how to raise her. Sometimes... Sometimes I think if I'd done it better she might have turned out so differently. I was so scared of messing up, and I know I held on too tight sometimes, got overprotective. I had no idea what I was doing.

“She was sickly, but from the day she was born she wanted to take on the whole world. She was always all extremes, highs and lows, desperate to carve out a space for herself. If there was silence, she had to fill it. If there was a challenge, she had to meet it. There was this... intensity and urgency to everything she did. I never could figure out where it came from. She was... a tempest in the body of a girl.” Bellamy takes a deep breath and his fingers tighten for a heartbeat. His next words come out perfectly calm, almost detached.

“Mom died when Octavia was sixteen, and that's when she first hit me. I didn't try to stop her. She just, she always felt everything so wildly and it was like she didn't know how to contain it. I thought... she needed an outlet, and it was my fault Mom was dead, so I just let her.” Clarke's breath feels caught in her throat, her heart aching for him, for the resignation with which he tells the story. For the fact that this story, as sad as it is, brushes over his mother's death because apparently that's just one minor piece of things, something that doesn't even fit in this story.

“This,” and he presses their hands down against the scar on his ribs, “is just from one of the times she needed a release for her anger or grief. I have others. She became a storm, and I let myself get caught in it. I spent most of my life trying to give her everything she needed, trying to help her calm whatever it was that roared under her skin. It felt like this was just another thing to give her. She had always been my responsibility, and I loved my sister very much.”

Clarke wants to tell him to stop, that he doesn't have to tell her this, bare his soul, but she doesn't, because it feels like he's been waiting a very long time to tell someone this story, and if he needs her to listen, she wants to give him that.

“I loved her, but I don't know if she ever knew how to truly love someone back. She didn't understand selfless love, loving someone not because of what they give you, but simply because of who they are. For Octavia it was like love was finite and if someone else had it, that was less for her and she'd resent it.

“But I loved her, more than anything in the world. She could be angry and violent and cruel, but she could also be protective and loyal and fun. Like I said, highs and lows.

“After she turned eighteen and went to college, I started trying to figure out what I wanted and I moved up here. When she'd been away awhile, I got a call from the college saying she'd assaulted a guy she was dating. They'd gotten in a fight and she'd punched him the face, fractured his jaw. I guess, I'd normalized it, in our relationship, but I'd never thought she'd hurt someone else. I'd never let myself label it because saying the word abuse made it... too real.

“She was suspended from school, maybe even got off easy because she was a young, pretty, white girl and no one really thought she meant to do that sort of damage. So she came up here since she had nowhere else to go and things were... Well, not great, but it was a wake up call for me, because I guess I had been in denial about who she was, and suddenly I wasn't anymore. So, I confronted her, and I stopped just letting her take out her anger on me and she was furious about it, but it helped. I don't think she ever expected me to stand up for myself, maybe she didn't even know that I could. Things were a little better, but we never really talked about it, never worked it out.

“She'd been back at school for four months when people started getting sick. I went down there, like there was something I could do, but three weeks later she was sick too.” He shrugs a little, but he doesn't have to say anything else. Once you're sick, there's nothing anyone can do.

“So I guess... Being back here, I can't stop going back over everything, from when she was just a little girl to now. Maybe if I'd done something differently... If I'd let myself see how serious everything was earlier... I told myself it was okay, because it was what she needed. It was okay, because I let her do it. I didn't let myself think too much about it, not consciously. And now... I don't know... I'm angry at her. I'm so fucking angry about what she did, and she's dead and I never really forgave her. That's fucked, right? She's dead and sometimes all I can think about is how now I'll never be able to figure out if I can forgive her.”

Clarke kisses his shoulder, because she doesn't have an answer for him. “Thank you. For trusting me enough to tell me.”

“You know how that first day you asked where we were going?”

“Yeah.” She hasn't asked since, it hadn't really made a difference to her, but she'd wondered.

“I don't have an answer. I wasn't going anywhere. I was just... trying to find somewhere that felt better. Taking care of Octavia was my whole purpose from the time I was six. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do now.”

They could stay here, Clarke thinks, they don't _have_ to leave. But in her heart, she knows that isn't true. This place isn't a haven for Bellamy like it is for her, and she understands all too well why. Things go quiet, but it's the peaceful type of silence, and slowly she watches as Bellamy's eyelashes brush his cheeks for longer and longer periods of time.

After he falls asleep, she slips outside to sit on the porch swing, the frigid air nipping at her, but she welcomes it and the clarity it brings. She gazes out over the snowy wood, all wrapped up in a blanket, and tries to pinpoint when her priorities shifted from protecting herself to protecting Bellamy Blake. She sits until she starts to see the sky turn pink with the sunrise and she still doesn't have an answer. All she knows is that she wouldn't go back.

* * *

  

_She doesn't even get to see Wells after he gets sick, not even once. She'd begged her mother, begged Thelonious. She just wanted a chance to say goodbye. It's what Wells would have wanted too, she argues, but they don't budge. Clarke not catching the virus from her father isn't a guarantee. She still needs to be careful, not expose herself unnecessarily. She'd ignored all these arguments, snuck through Wells' window after she's sure their parents are both asleep. But he's not there. Nothing is there. His room is cleared out, not a single personal touch, not the photo collage Clarke had personally taped up on his wall, not the books his mother left him, not a scrap of clothing. It's like he'd never even existed in the first place._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, there's part 2! Thanks for all the feedback so far! I'd love to hear your feelings about this part. 
> 
> I consider part 2.... kind of the calm before the storm (though I wouldn't say this fic is going to get half as hectic and dramatic as a lot of fics). Up to this point Bellarke have kind of been in a bubble together, and in part 3 that bubble bursts and we have other characters coming into play! 
> 
> As you might be aware, I'm not really a big fan of writing sex scenes, so all smut in this fic will be minor (as mentioned in the tags) because I honestly just don't have the talent for super smutty sex scenes that some people do. 
> 
> Just fair warning, part 3 (I expect) is going to take a bit longer to update because it's a more complicated chapter than the other two. I still hope to have it up in a timely manner, but it'll be (I believe) a slightly longer wait than between these two. That being said, it is on its way! I love hearing from you guys! The support really does mean a lot! 
> 
>  
> 
> [come hang out with me on tumblr!](http://grumpybell.tumblr.com/)


	3. Pt. 3 - And I Could Be Wrong About Anybody Else

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a little too close to home for Clarke, but... well, it's not like they're actually going to her home. And to protest, she'd have to talk about her past, and that's something she still doesn't feel ready to do, no matter how much she trusts Bellamy. Even thinking about it makes a sick feeling slip under her skin and sink into her stomach.
> 
> “So you're taking me to meet your friends?” Clarke teases, hoping Bellamy can't hear the unease in her voice, that he has no idea that she's fighting back images of blood dripping from her father's mouth.
> 
> “That's one word for them, I guess.” Bellamy's arms slide around her waist, pulling her back against him tighter, his skin finally warm from the water. The gesture calms her, and she knows that she failed. He's noticed, but he doesn't mention it.

 

**Pt. 3 And I Could Be Wrong About Anybody Else**

 

_The first month on her own had been hard, but she hadn't realized how much harder it could get. People still hadn't fully registered the scope of what they were dealing with. Things hadn't completely hit the fan. There were still hotels to stay in and convenience stores to shop at and diners where she could get a greasy meal. The government hadn't gone into full meltdown, yet. The people felt different- strained, too quiet, scared or trying to deny the inevitable, but it hadn't felt like the actual end of the world. That would come later, slowly. Clarke didn't wander entirely aimlessly, she just went West. Away. It wasn't until her car died twelve weeks in and she couldn't find anyone to fix it, leaving her stranded, that she started to realize how much worse things could be._

* * *

 

The cabin is a bit like a blissful bubble for Clarke, particularly now that Bellamy's opened up. He seems lighter, and even though he slips occasionally into that darker place, Clarke can generally coax him out of it, now that he's not hiding the cause. She learns more about Octavia, and doesn't particularly like what she learns, but she knows she's biased. She'll always be on Bellamy's side. And it isn't exactly endearing, to see the damage Octavia has caused, to know the scars on his skin and the shadows in his eyes come from her. The world may have ended, but Bellamy's haunted by something much older.

As much as she hates to admit it, Clarke knows this time is coming to an end. The first thing Bellamy does every morning is hike down the road to check driving conditions, and she knows the moment he deems it safe, he'll want to be on the road again. She doesn't know what he's looking for; he doesn't know either, but she wants to help him find it. Focusing on Bellamy's problems let her push her own to the back of her mind, bury them under her layers of concern and desire to help him. She shuts down the little voice in her head that's whispering that it will only make things worse in the long run.

Clarke's in the bath when Bellamy gets back from his morning walk, soaking in the hot water, eyes closed. She's going to miss this. She hears his boots in the kitchen and the kitchen tap running, which she suspects means there will be warm pot of coffee when she makes it out of her sleepy bath.

“Want some company?”

Clarke cracks her eyes open to find Bellamy leaning against the doorframe to the bathroom, arms crossed, cheeks flushed from cold.

“Sure, if you'll wash my hair.”

Bellamy snorts. “You are so lazy.” But he's already tugging his shirt over his head. Clarke sits up and pulls the stopper to let some water out of the bath to keep it from overflowing when Bellamy joins her. They'd made that mistake already and Bellamy had complained for hours about how long it'd taken him to clean up the floor. He climbs in behind her and lets her settle back against his chest, snorting a little when she grumbles about how cold he is.

“Pass me the shampoo,” his only response to her whining. She does so, and tilts her head back a little to give him better access when his fingers slide into her hair. Clarke loves having her hair played with, used to beg Wells to help her braid it and unbraid it over and over. She's practically purring by the time Bellamy finishes working the soap into her hair.

It occurs to Clarke, sitting back against his chest, how incredibly domestic this situation is. There's a little kernel of panic inside her chest, urging her to turn around and capture his lips, lick into his mouth, turn this into something sexual and easy to define, something that lets her ignore the softness of the warm glow that his presence brings to every pore of her body. Instead, she speaks up.

“How much longer until the roads clear?” Clarke asks him as he finishes with the soap and she eases herself forward so she can dip her hair back into the water.

“Couple of days, three or four at most.”

“And are we going somewhere? Or just going?”

Bellamy's quiet for a few moments, and Clarke sits back up fully, water streaming from her hair, turning enough that she can see his face. He's gazing at the door, eyes distant.

“Bellamy?”

“There are towns,” he says finally, “where people who are immune or vaccinated have gathered. I know of a few across the country, but I have acquaintances in one in Western North Carolina. I stop there to pick up supplies, trade, get the truck checked over. It's about time for me to be stopping by there anyway.”

It's a little too close to home for Clarke, but... well, it's not like they're actually _going_ to her home. And to protest, she'd have to talk about her past, and that's something she still doesn't feel ready to do, no matter how much she trusts Bellamy. Even thinking about it makes a sick feeling slip under her skin and sink into her stomach.

“So you're taking me to meet your friends?” Clarke teases, hoping Bellamy can't hear the unease in her voice, that he has no idea that she's fighting back images of blood dripping from her father's mouth.

“That's one word for them, I guess.” Bellamy's arms slide around her waist, pulling her back against him tighter, his skin finally warm from the water. The gesture calms her, and she knows that she failed. He's noticed, but he doesn't mention it.

* * *

 

They pack the truck early on a Thursday morning. Early, of course, because Bellamy is the type of morning person who can't sit still. He checks the back of the truck at least three times, and then walks around the house making sure all the doors and windows are properly secured. Clarke waits in the car, leaning her head against the window and dozing. They really need to have a discussion about the appropriate time to get up in the mornings. If there were to be any perk of the apocalypse, it should be the ability to sleep in.

The last thing Bellamy loads into the truck are Clarke's crutches. She hasn't used them in days, but he'd refused to leave them at the cabin, muttering something about everything they went through to get them in the first place. He's not wrong, but Clarke doesn't want to touch those damn crutches ever again if she can help it.

They're well on their way by the time the sun is fully up, Clarke's feet on the dash, one of Bellamy's indie CDs that Clarke had found and brought from the cabin playing. It's still incredibly cold out, but the sun is bright, the sky blue. There's snow all around, but it's melted off the roads for the most part, Bellamy slowing considerably to maneuver through some more questionable areas.

It takes them four days to get to North Carolina, slow going through some areas, but the snow and ice starts to disappear the further south they get and by the time they hit the Appalachian mountains the snow is confined to a light dusting. The town itself feels hidden, folded into a hollow accessed by a winding mountain road. One moment there's nothing but trees, and the next it's there, a makeshift gate across the road and the flicker of electric lights.

Bellamy pulls up to the gate and rolls down his window. Clarke has to crane her neck to see the man who approaches the truck. He has a rifle, but Bellamy appears unconcerned.

“Blake.”

“Miller.”

“You're back early.”

“Circumstances changed. You know where Reyes is?”

“This time of day? Probably Jasper's for a caffeine boost.” Miller taps the driver's side door. “You in town for a while?”

“Few days at least. I need a full check up on the truck.” It's fascinating, to watch Bellamy interact with Miller. Clarke's never had a chance to watch him talk to another person, and... he's not the Bellamy she first met all those weeks ago, gruff and closed off entirely. He's also not the man she's spent the past two weeks holed up in a cabin with. There's a slight defensiveness in the way in which he holds his shoulders, an edge of tension in his jaw. He's on guard, even if he trusts and likes the people who live here.

“Okay, see you 'round, man.” Miller gives the truck one last pat and yells something back at the gate that sends it creaking open. Clarke sits back in her seat as they drive through.

“How well do you know these people?” she asks, a blank space in his life to fill in.

“I stayed here for a month, once, early on.” He pulls into the parking lot of what used to be an IHOP. It's got lights on and Clarke can see people through the windows.

It doesn't feel like an IHOP on the inside, even though they are serving food. Someone had draped colored christmas lights all over the place and there are mismatched tapestries hung on the walls. Clarke doesn't know where the electricity is coming from, but she can smell food cooking in the back, and her stomach aches in response.

Bellamy heads toward a back booth and Clarke trails him. He exchanges several nods with people scattered about at the tables and the bar, but doesn't speak to anyone until they reach the very back, where a girl is bent over a piece of paper, an empty mug of what probably used to be coffee next to her.

“Reyes.” She looks up at Bellamy's voice. She's gorgeous, but the smirk that crosses her lips at the sight of them is more predatory than inviting.

“Hey, Blake. Ruin your truck already?”

Bellamy rolls his eyes and slides into the booth across from her, and Clarke follows, studying the girl across the table. There's something sharp and incredibly intimidating about her. She looks like a model, even in her beat up red jacket, hair thrown back into a ponytail.

“This is Clarke,” Bellamy tilts his head to her, “We're in town for a few days, and _no_ , I haven't ruined anything, but I'd like you to take a look anyway.”

“What'd you bring me for it?”

“I've got about five car batteries, you think that'll do?” Bellamy seems exasperated, but a little fond. He's still more guarded than Clarke's gotten used to seeing him. Reyes sits back, and something shiny hanging from around her neck catches the light. It's a necklace, a little metal origami bird. Clarke's stomach clenches. She's seen that before.

“I'm gonna run to the bathroom,” Clarke interrupts, sliding out of the booth before anyone can respond.

The bathroom is surprisingly clean and thankfully has running water. Clarke splashes some cold water on her face, taking deep breaths. It could be a coincidence. It's not necessarily the same necklace. It's a flimsy lie. It shouldn't matter, anyway. She knew Finn lied to her. She just didn't expect to come face to face with those lies. It's in the past, Clarke reminds herself, and that's where it's going to stay. There's no use dragging up all that now.

She gives herself three minutes to compose herself before stepping back out of the bathroom and walking back to the table. A few steps away, she catches the words being exchanged, and pauses. They haven't noticed her.

“-and Bree will be pleased you're in town. She moped for _days_ after you left last time. I don't even want to know what you've been doing to make her so bummed when you go,” Raven is saying.

Bellamy's back is to her, so Clarke can't see the expression on his face when he clears his throat, “Doesn't matter. I'm with Clarke.”

“ _With_ her, with her?” There's surprise in her voice. “You're doing the whole boyfriend thing these days?”

“I-” he pauses, and Clarke tries to shrink back into the shadows further. “We haven't talked about labels or anything. But I don't want to be with anyone else.” The finality of his tone makes Clarke's heart skip a beat.

“Huh.” Reyes' eyebrows are raised. “Never thought I'd see the day. Anyway, I gotta get back to work. Bring your truck and the batteries by the garage tomorrow, I'll check it out then.” She slides out of the booth and Clarke realizes, a moment too late, that she is absolutely about to be caught. Instead of calling her out, Reyes slides past her with a knowing grin that's almost worse.

She takes the seat opposite Bellamy instead of next to him, now that they're alone. He startles a little, apparently lost in thought.

“Hungry?” he asks.

“Starving.”

“I'll go grab something from the back. No actual service in this place.” Clarke slumps into her seat a little as Bellamy walks away, a mess of emotions in her chest. She's having a hard time pushing her shock of having such a strong Finn reminder to the side, but her heart is still pounding from Bellamy's admission. It's not like he'd indicated anything differently, Clarke tells herself. Sure, they hadn't _talked_ about it, but that was because there was no reason to, they were just _together_.

It takes Bellamy almost fifteen minutes to return with two plates stacked with pancakes and scrambled eggs.

“Sorry,” he says, setting the food down. “I got hung up with Jasper. He's a little... much, and it took a good five minutes to convince him we didn't need any pot brownies to go with this.”

Clarke gives him what she hopes is a convincing smile, still feeling a little off. “It's fine, just hand it over,” she teases, pulling one of the plates toward her.

“So, she agreed to look at the truck?” Clarke asks around a mouthful of pancakes.

“Hhhmmm? Oh, yeah, she would've done it even if I didn't have anything to pay her with. She talks a tough game, but everyone around here helps each other out.”

“So. Miller. Reyes. Jasper. Do you call anyone here by their first name, Blake?”

Bellamy snorts. “Jasper _is_ his first name. But yeah, I mean, Miller just doesn't like anyone calling him Nate except his boyfriend, and with Raven it's mostly just a joke.”

Raven. Any hope that it was all just a coincidence slips away. Clarke swallows, and fights back the guilt. It wasn't her fault, and it wasn't Raven's either. Finn's just an asshole.

“Hey, Bellamy?”

“Yeah?” He's looking at her oddly, maybe sensing something in her tone.

“I don't want to be with anyone else either.”

The surprise on his face gives way to something like fond irritation. “Eavesdropper,” he teases and flicks a bit of pancake at her with his fork. Clarke ducks, and the smile he gives her is the first blindingly brilliant, _real_ smile she's seen from him since they left the cabin.

* * *

 

They spend the night in a hotel, a real one, or a makeshift real one, anyway. It had once been a bed and breakfast and it now served the multipurpose of a sort of community center/bar/guest lodging. It was run by a man named Lincoln, whose personality was a lot more gentle than his bulging muscles would indicate. He and Bellamy seemed to know each other in a friendly, if distant, way. Bellamy had traded him a couple bottles of whiskey for a room upstairs.

By mid evening, the main room downstairs was full of town residents, drinking, laughing, and swapping stories of the day. Bellamy had seemed reluctant to go down and join them, which had suited Clarke just fine. It was overwhelming, to suddenly be surrounded by so many people.

Instead, they spend their evening in their room, Bellamy reading, Clarke sketching, and both decide to go to bed early. Everything is a little unsettled. The important things she knows, that she wants to be with Bellamy and he wants to be with her, but how to translate their private relationship into a place filled with other people is something she isn't sure how to do. She honestly hadn't thought much about it happening.

She wakes up in the middle of the night to Bellamy's lips on her neck and his hands warm against her stomach. She sinks back into his touches, sleepy and appreciative, before turning in his arms to look at him.

“Everything okay?” she mumbles, sleepy, and hopes that the answer is yes, because this is nice, but it's not a pattern they have and she's not sure what's caused it.

“Yeah,” he kisses her, deep and a little needy, and his emotion is catching, sparking in her chest. She thinks she gets it now. Today has been overwhelming and different and full of so many people, but this is familiar, something to cling to when the world seems too much.

Bellamy's hands wander, finding the edges of clothes and pulling at them, up, off. _I don't want to be with anyone else_ , a confession, really. And she knows, she absolutely knows what that feeling is that threatens to swallow her when she sees the softness in his eyes, but it's not yet one she's willing to name. Not out loud.

He rolls her under him, skin to skin. Clarke grips his shoulders and Bellamy rests his forehead against hers, everything suddenly slowing greatly, no longer a desperate frenzy. There are unspoken words hanging between them, lingering in kisses, and the press of his fingers against her hips as he pushes inside her, read between the lines of the way she breathes his name and the reverent tone in which he murmurs hers. It's closeness at a level Clarke's never felt before, something that transcends the physical. It's overwhelming, but she welcomes it, gives into it. She knows its name. And one day she'll tell him.

* * *

 

She accompanies Bellamy to Raven's garage the next morning. She'd been tempted to beg off, claim she'd wanted to explore the town, just so she didn't have to look the other girl in the eyes, but part of her is morbidly curious about her. She tags along against her better judgement.

Raven's “garage” looks less like a garage and more like a mad scientist's lab merged with a rocket assembly factory. For one thing, it's large, apparently an old warehouse that's been retrofitted into a workshop. It's also _full_ , odds and ends scattered _everywhere_ , things that look like half finished projects piled unceremoniously on top of each other.

Bellamy has to yell to get Raven's attention over the rock music she's got blasting as she tinkers with something on a scuffed wooden table.

“Reyes!” She looks up the second time he calls her name and fumbles with something on the table. The music stops. The sudden silence feels nearly as loud.

“Blake,” she nods at him. “Didn't run into any ditches this time, did you? I'm not wasting my time replacing another bumper.”

“That was one time,” Bellamy grumbles.

“Yeah, and it was stupid.”

“There was a deer.”

“Mmm.” Raven doesn't look convinced. “So,” she wipes her hands on the front of her pants. “What exactly do you want done this time?” she asks, walking around the table and approaching the truck.

“I haven't had any problems, but I don't know when I'll be back through so I want a full check up, oil, break fluid, tires, the works.”

Raven nods. “You got the batteries?”

“They're in the back.” All three of them walk around to the truck bed to unload the batteries. Somehow, Clarke ends up right next to Raven, trying not to stare at her. She really is unfairly pretty. It just makes her more confused how the hell Finn ended up-

“So, Clarke. Is that a first name or a last name?” Raven asks, hauling out a second battery.

“First,” Clarke tells her, hoping she doesn't sound as nervous as she is.

“You could call her Griffin, if you like,” Bellamy suggests from the other side of the truck. He shoots Clarke a cheeky grin.

“Griffin?” Something has shifted drastically in Raven's tone. Clarke's heart plummets into her stomach. Surely Finn wouldn't have _told_ her. She can't possibly know.

“Clarke Griffin?” Raven repeats, and Clarke wishes more than anything she could read the strange expression on Raven's face. She nods yes.

“Hold on,” Raven says, suddenly a flurry of movement. She turns and walks around the front of the truck. Clarke trails her, slowly, unsure.

“What's going on?” Bellamy asks her lowly and she shakes her head, not trusting her voice, as Raven opens a door on the back wall and sticks her head inside. Her voice is muffled, but loud enough that they can make out what she says.

“Hey Smartass, you need to get out here right now.” Clarke didn't think her heart could sink any lower, but there's only one thing that makes sense, one reason Raven would know her name. She has absolutely no interest in seeing Finn ever again, but it looks like she won't have a choice. She takes a deep breath to steady herself.

The man who appears in the doorway beside Raven is not Finn Collins.

“Clarke?” Her knees go weak and Bellamy has to catch her arm to keep her standing. It's simply not possible. She'd think she was dreaming if it weren't for the firm absolute grip of Bellamy's fingers on her elbow.

The man steps forward. A slow, blindingly bright smile spreads across his face. Clarke's world turns upside down. He's walking toward her now and his approach breaks something in her and she jumps forward to meet him, buries her face in the neck of her oldest friend and cries, because against all odds, against everything she knows to be true, Wells Jaha is alive.

* * *

 

Wells gives Clarke a tour of the town while Bellamy hangs out at Raven's garage with the truck. It's really just an excuse to have some space to talk. Clarke isn't sure she takes in a single landmark that they pass on their stroll. It feels unreal, even after her sputtered _how_ , and Wells' explanation-

“My dad thought it would be best to quarantine me when it spread to our area and your dad got sick. I wasn't going to do it, obviously, but then I found out your mom was working on a vaccine and I agreed on the condition that she would run trials on me. They weren't supposed to be dangerous ones, but I got exposed to the virus accidentally and they weren't sure if I was going to get sick from it. I thought they would tell you.” Wells shrugs, shoulders hunched a bit, the only sign of his irritation. “I didn't know they hadn't until after you ran away. Apparently your mom thought it was better in case the exposure killed me anyway. I didn't want to leave you alone after your dad, but...”

She knows where that sentence goes. But he'd had a chance to help _everyone_ , the whole world, and Wells loves Clarke, but he'd had to choose the world. She doesn't blame him. He wouldn't be the man she knows and loves if he hadn't. Clarke feels like there's something wrong with her heart, with the erratic way it's beating. She's drowning in the conflicting joy of having her best friend back and the additional blow to her relationship with her mother.

“I can't believe she'd-” but she can't finish the sentence, because it's not entirely true. Clarke's not sure she really knows exactly what Abby Griffin is and isn't capable of anymore. She's also not sure she'll ever feel at peace until she finds out.

“She thought she was protecting you,” Wells offers, but his tone makes it clear he knows this explanation will be of very little comfort to Clarke.

“I thought you were _dead_.” She shakes her head and fights back the tears that threaten to spill down her cheeks. It's not real. Wells is right here, next to her. “They let me think that.”  
“I mean, yeah, that was shitty. I'm not saying it wasn't shitty, I just...” Wells pauses, looking at her intently. “I just think that you still have a chance to try to find some closure. Not everyone has that these days.”

If anyone else had said something like this to her, Clarke probably would have just walked away. But this isn't anyone. This is Wells, her oldest friend in the whole world. He knows Clarke inside and out, and he's never pulled any punches with her. That's what makes him someone she unconditionally trusts.

“She's still in Charleston?” Clarke asks him. She's not saying she's going to do it, but the first step is even _finding_ her mother.

“I expect so. They've pulled things together pretty well there, bigger than what we have here. From what I hear it's one of the largest active settlements on the east coast.”

“Right.” because of course wherever Clarke's mom is like that, it shouldn't be a surprise. She's not ready for that, not yet, but looking at Wells' earnest face she can't help but feel that if he thinks she should... Well, there's merit to the idea.

“Come on,” he slings an arm around her shoulders, and Clarke feels warm down to her toes. “I'm supposed to be showing you around.”

* * *

 

By the time Clarke sees Bellamy again at dinner, he's in a mood. She and Wells meet up with Bellamy, Raven, Miller, and Miller's boyfriend, Jackson, over at Jasper's, which seems to be the only restaurant in town. Clarke thinks that's a rather loose interpretation of the word.

“He serves a normal menu and then there's all these weird food creations that he made up when he was high. That's the only way to eat them, too,” Wells tells her as they're sliding into a booth. The others are already there, and Wells is quick to introduce her to Miller and Jackson, neither of whom she's officially met. It's then that she notices something off about Bellamy. He's too quiet, and he only meets her eyes briefly when she and Wells join the table, opting to peruse the makeshift menu, instead.

He's quiet through dinner, speaking when spoken to, but choosing not to contribute to the conversation otherwise. If she were seated next to him Clarke might try to ask, but she doesn't want to draw attention to his mood in front of the group. For all she knows, this is the Bellamy they're used to, but based on the occasional searching glance Miller throws his way, she doubts it.

It's late by the time she gets him alone, having waved goodbye to Raven and Wells just outside Lincoln's. She's meeting Wells in the morning at the garage. She hasn't asked about him and Raven, but she knows Wells better than nearly anyone, so she has a feeling she knows exactly what's between them. She's also starting to wonder if she knows exactly what's pushed Bellamy into a brooding silence.

He shows no interest in broaching his obvious discomfort, so after they've been back in their room for fifteen minutes, in which Bellamy had settled down onto the bed with a book and not so much as a glance in her direction, she breaks the silence.

“What's wrong?” She'd almost think he hadn't heard if it weren't for the flex of his fingers on the front cover the book. She's on the other side of the room, perched on a chair by the window. Putting herself close to him with the emotional distance he was radiating had felt like too much of a leap.

“I don't want to talk about it right now.” A muscle jumps in his jaw, the one that tells her he's certainly holding a whole host of things back.

“Bellamy...” Maybe it's not the right thing to say, but it's the only thing that's changed. “There's nothing... it's not romantic, between me and Wells.”

He puts his book down then, finally looks at her. For once, she can't read his expression. More than anything, he just looks tired.

“It's not that. I'm not jealous or angry or... I'm just thinking.”

Clarke finds his tone equally difficult to understand. It's putting her on edge, how absolutely neutral he seems to be. That's not Bellamy. There's something emotional going on underneath it, she just can't, for the life of her, figure out what.

“Whoever he is, Clarke, he's important to you. I'm glad you got him back. But you never even told me his name.” Bellamy's words come out slow, thoughtful, and there's something deeper behind them. “You haven't told me anyone's name. I'm just trying to figure out how I'm supposed to feel about that.”

Everything Clarke wants to say dries up in her throat until all she's left with is, “It's not about you.” It's not enough. She knows it before the words are even past her lips.

He gives her a tired, sad little half smile. “Maybe not.”

Bellamy picks his book back up and as much as Clarke wants to prove him wrong, the only way she knows to do that is to tell him everything she's locked away behind mental doors for months, and to be completely honest she doesn't even know how to open those doors again.

She meets Wells after a fitful night of sleep, lying beside Bellamy, but unsure if she's allowed to touch him. It's such a fast turnaround from where they'd been just last night, everything seeming to buckle under the exposure to daylight. She'd never thought about how her relationship with Bellamy would stand up to scrutiny.

“I know that look,” Wells says, the moment he sees her. He taps her temple playfully. “There's something probably overcomplicated going on up there.”

Clarke swats his hand away, but the familiarity of the situation brings an unbidden smile to her lips. She missed this. Wells is the sort of person who people want to spill their guts to, and at the moment Clarke feels she could really use his insight.

“Bellamy's... upset with me, I guess.” She sits down on one of Raven's work benches and Wells settles next to her. She hasn't asked where the mechanic is today, but Clarke hasn't seen her.

“Because,” Wells prompts. During their time together the day before Clarke had mentioned she and Bellamy are seeing each other, but not much elaborated on that. There had been so much else to talk about.

“I haven't told him anything.” Clarke scuffs her shoe against the concrete floor. “About me, or you, or my mom, or dad, or the last twelve months... well, any of it.”

“Why not?” There's a warmth to Wells' gaze, but it has a searching quality as well.

She doesn't know, not entirely. “I don't know how.”

“Hm.” It's not a very good excuse and Wells doesn't say so, but she knows it. She reaches for something else, something true.

“When I let people in, they die.”

Wells snorts. “False equivalency, Clarke. You do realize how many people have died in the past year, right? Don't pretend like you're special enough for that to be about you.” It could be unkind, but the way he says it is just honest.

“It still feels that way.” She doesn't know how to explain that dread that lurks so deep in her chest she feels if it goes it'll take some essential piece of her with it. Telling her story means saying the words that admit her past happened, it means placing that past in the hands of someone who has the power to crush her. But she doesn't say any of this. If they way Wells looks at her is any indication, she doesn't have to.

“We're all working through shit these days, Clarke.” He puts a hand on her knee, warm, familiar, a callback to better times. “Taking that first step to try to heal is a choice.”

“You know I hate it when you're right,” Clarke mumbles at him. He is right. She's just not really sure how to take his advice.

Wells laughs. “Yeah, that I remember.”

“So,” Clarke changes the subject, “you've sorted through my relationship issues. Now, tell me what's going on with Raven.” She wants to ask about Finn, if he's here, and if not _why_ not, but she can't do that without explaining how she knows about him in the first place. She's definitely not ready to have that conversation.

“She's working through shit too.”

“Wells.”

“I forgot how much of a pest you could be,” he sighs. “After your mom finished the medical trials and it had been successful I thought about trying to find you, but you'd been gone for a couple of months and I had no idea where to start looking. I didn't really like being in Charleston either, not after everything. I guess it was harder seeing the aftermath of a place you know so well. There were too many people and places missing.

“Anyway, I met Miller and Monty, he's basically a genius and runs the agricultural part of town as well as makes the moonshine to stock Lincoln's bar, when they were on a supply run to Charleston and they told me about this place. It'd just gotten on its feet, really, and I thought it would be worth checking out, so I hitched a ride back with them and I've been here ever since.” He shrugs.

“And Raven?”

Wells looks away. It's a rare sign of discomfort. Wells is a direct person. “Raven was in a bad place, not my story to tell. She had an extra room, I moved into it.”

Clarke nudges him with an elbow. “Come on, Wells. We may not have seen each other in over a year, but I still know you.”

He looks at her, vulnerable. “She's special. But it's not... I'm here when she's ready. If she wants.”

How very Wells of him, not to push, and most of the time he knows exactly what people need. Clarke doesn't know Raven, not really, but she can guess at what some of the shit she's working through is. Some of it is, however unintentionally, probably Clarke's fault, and she just wants to make sure Wells isn't waiting for something Raven doesn't even see.

“You know, maybe you should just tell her that.”

“You think, Griffin?”

Clarke smiles at him. “Couldn't hurt, could it?” That makes Wells laugh again. He shakes his head at her, but the smile never leaves his lips.

“It's like you haven't been paying attention at all.”

“Wells.” Clarke knows a little more about Raven's story than she's willing to admit, and while she doesn't know _exactly_ what she's been through, there are some thing she could guess.

“Clarke,” he says, mock serious.

“If she lost someone...” she ventures. “It's just... she deserves to love someone again. I know you know that, but... Maybe she doesn't. Maybe she needs to hear someone say it.”

“When did you get so wise?” Wells asks, and there's a teasing edge, but his eyes are sincere. “Last I saw you, you were just a sarcastic little shit.”  
Clarke rolls her eyes at him. “A lot can happen in a year.”

He sobers. “Yeah,” and he puts an arm around her shoulders, pulling her a little more closely into his side. “Yeah, it can.”

* * *

 

She and Bellamy hadn't talked about how long they really intended to stay in North Carolina, or where they planned to go next, and while things have settled back into a tentative peace between them, the days start to slip by without addressing the departure date that seems to be hanging over their heads. Despite Wells' encouragement, Clarke hasn't managed to discuss her past with Bellamy. She wants to, but the distance that has slowly grown between them feels like a gaping hole, one that it scares Clarke to try to cross. It's big enough it's starting to feel like it might swallow her whole.

On the surface, everything seems fine. Save for Bellamy's reticent mood and request for time and space to think that first night, he hasn't been behaving coolly toward her. They eat meals together, tease each other, and socialize with the rest of the town. They sleep side by side and more often than not Clarke wakes curled against him. He doesn't push her away exactly, but he feels distant, like he's going through the motions without a deeper intent. Clarke's never had to deal with something like this. They aren't fighting, but there's tension. If the name of the game is avoidance, Clarke is a little too good at it. In fact, if she'd never seen the side of Bellamy that had emerged at the cabin, warm, emotional, and eventually open with such unapologetically raw trust, she might not even realize how much he's closed himself off from her. But she had seen that Bellamy, and now all she wants is to have him back.

As wonderful as it is to have Wells returned to her life, and as much as she finds she likes the community that has formed here, Clarke feels like she's standing still, while the whole world streams past her. She doesn't know how to step into the water and join them. Sometimes she wishes they were back at the cabin, before she'd managed to make him feel unimportant to her. He's so far from it, but for Clarke, every single time she wants to tell him, words fail.

After a week, she can tell Bellamy's getting restless. They've only stayed this long because of Wells, Clarke knows. He hasn't said it, but according to everyone in town, Bellamy's stops here have always been brief, three days at most, so she knows. Even in his hurt and confusion he's looking out for her. She hates that she's not brave enough to do the same.

Clarke knows she can't give him everything he deserves from her, at least not at the moment, but she hopes she can give him something. She needs to move forward somehow, her discussions with Wells have convinced her of that, and so she's going to try.

She finds Bellamy in Lincoln's bar with Monty and Raven a little before he generally comes up to bed, drinking an amber colored liquid from a heavy glass. She wants to talk to him immediately, but she makes herself wait, slips onto the barstool next to him and asks Lincoln for a glass of water.

Raven and Monty stay for two more drinks, their smiles getting wider and their words lazier. They leave arm in arm, leaning on each other and exaggeratedly waving goodbye to everyone in the bar. Bellamy drains the last of his drink and sets it down with a snap on the wooden countertop.

“Ready to go up?” There's just the slightest lilt to his words that tells her he's not entirely sober, but the look in his eyes is softer than she's seen it for days, and she'll take it any way she can get it. She's been starving for that look.

In their room, Bellamy strips down to his underwear and collapses face first onto the bed. He's been a little under the weather the past couple of days, nursing a cough and sore throat. Clarke follows him more slowly, perching on the edge of the bed and laying a hand on his back. His skin is so warm.

“Bell?”

“Mmmm.” It's only a low hum in the back of his throat, but he turns his head so he can look at her, cheek pressed into the pillow.

“I know you don't want to be here any longer,” Clarke starts. “So I think we should go. And I'd like to go to Charleston.” Like is a strong word. She'd really rather not, but Wells is right, she has to face her mother one day, and with her best friend around, a visceral reminder of her past, she's not able to push it to the back of her mind any longer. To keep her anxiety from overwhelming her and dragging her down into a spiral of doubt and fear, she moves her hand from Bellamy's back to his hair, threading her fingers into his curls and gently working out the knots. In his tipsy state, he only leans slightly into her hand.

“Why Charleston?” he mumbles into his pillow, fighting to keep his eyes open. Clarke forces the panic down as deep as she can. Talking about her past feels like accepting it, and accepting it makes it real to her. She wants to move past it, but she doesn't know how. One step at a time, she reminds herself.

“My mother is there.” She watches the information filter past the alcohol induced haze, bring a little more awareness to his eyes. He'd been right on the edge of sleep, but he's clawed his way back. He doesn't say anything for a few moments, and his gaze feels like it's taking her apart, piece by piece. Finally, he closes his eyes.

“Okay.” She was expecting more of a reaction, honestly. It takes nearly a full minute for it to sink in that he's not going to say anything else. Only after he nudges her slightly does she realize her fingers have stopped working in his hair. Clarke resumes her work, the relief starting to trickle into her veins. It's not everything, but it's a start.

* * *

 

Clarke spends the next day with Wells, collecting and trading for supplies to take with them when they go. She and Bellamy had decided to split up their list to speed up the process of restocking. Bellamy is gathering clothing, mechanical parts, and ammunition, while Clarke is in charge of first aid, bath and other health products, and food. Bellamy had brought plenty of things to trade, electronics that Raven could retrofit, alcohol for Lincoln's bar, seeds and bulbs for Monty, things that are good for a settlement and not so much for someone who lives a nomadic existence like Bellamy.

Wells is beyond helpful as her go between for the trades, partially because he knows everyone and partially because people just like him. He even manages to finagle a chocolate bar out of Jasper when they take a break for lunch.

“For your mom,” Wells explains, passing it to her. “Thought you might need a peace offering.” Despite being a doctor and enforcing a strictly healthy diet throughout Clarke's childhood, Abby has a weakness for sweets. She can hear the undercurrent of what Wells doesn't say, that he's proud of her. She's glad he doesn't voice it. Clarke is functioning by putting one foot in front of the other and not thinking about what the reunion with her mother may be like. If she thinks about more than the exact moment she's in, she might just crumble.

Clarke finishes all her chores by mid afternoon and decides to head back to their room for a chance to put up her feet before dinner. She's seen Bellamy in passing a couple of times, but for no more than a few minutes. He'd looked harried and irritable, coughing into his elbow. He's not in the room, but there are signs of his presence, supplies heaped into piles that Clarke thinks must have some organization, even if she can't see it.

It's an unseasonably warm day and Bellamy's left his coat draped across the bed, possibly having cast it off on his way out of the room. Clarke collapses onto the bed exhausted, but Bellamy's coat is crinkly and the zipper is digging into her arm. She picks it up and tosses it at the chair in the corner, but misses, and goes to collect it grumbling to herself. All she really wants to do is curl up and sleep for a little while. She's not thinking about anything but sleep as she picks up his coat, so it stops her in her tracks when she lifts his coat and sees a bright flash of white underneath it. A folded piece of paper is lying on the ground, presumably having fallen out of his pocket. The paper is soft against her fingers as she picks it up, clearly old. It has Bellamy's name written on it in a looping script. The edges of the paper are worn, like it's been folded for a very long time. She knows she should slip it back into his pocket, but her curiosity gets the better of her. Before she can think about it she's sitting back on the bed and unfolding the paper.

 

_Bell,_

 

_I know you're going to hate me for this, if you don't hate me for everything else already. I know you won't understand. But the truth is- I'm not going to get better. You might be in denial, but I'm not. I'm dying anyway, and if I let you keep trying to save me it's just going to take longer and end up worse for the both of us. So this is it. This is the least selfish thing I've ever done, and I hope one day you can see it that way. To put it in a literary context like you would, this is my Sydney Carton moment. I just have one last request, one last thing I need from you. Find a way to be happy again, Bell. I know you won't believe it, but I know there's a future out there in which you can be. That's what I need from you, okay?I'm being Sydney, so you have to be Charles. That's how the story works, Bell, and I'm ready to rest._

 

_I love you big brother,_

 

_O_

 

Clarke knows, as soon as she starts reading, that this is not something for her eyes, but before she knows it, she's finished the note and there's no taking that back. This is a piece of Octavia's story that he hasn't shared with her, and there is absolutely a reason for that. She folds the paper back up the guilt starting to settle in her stomach. She'll put it back. He'll never know. But when she looks up, Bellamy is leaning against the doorframe to the room. He doesn't say anything, but the look in his eyes makes her stomach drop all the way to her toes.

“I-” she starts to explain, though she's not sure what she could say. She's fucked up. It's as simple as that. He silences her with a glance.

“Does this seem fair to you, Clarke?” he asks, and his voice is so quiet, so emotionless that it scares her. “That I know fuck all about you and yet you feel entitled to go through my personal things.”

“It fell out of your pocket. I-”

“-didn't have to read it,” Bellamy finishes. He's right. She knows he's right. She doesn't have an excuse because there isn't one. Still, the absolute darkness in his eyes is terrifying and past her ability to understand. There's even more to this story, and she's not sure if she wants to know what it is.

“I'm sorry.” It doesn't feel like nearly enough.

He shakes his head, looking away from her. “I can't have this conversation right now.” Before Clarke can say anything else he turns on his heel and leaves the room, his footfall heavy on the stairs.

She sits on the bed, heart pounding, for several minutes before finally climbing to her feet and sliding the note back into Bellamy's pocket and carefully draping his coat over the chair. The damage is done. Not knowing what else to do, she goes and finds Wells.

The whole story spills out in a mess, and by the end Clarke is fighting back tears. She doesn't feel like she deserves to cry over this. Wells is one of the best people Clarke has ever known, and he's always been incredibly good at sorting through shit without being judgmental, but even he looks bothered by the end of her story.

“If you're looking for me to have a solution for this one, I don't,” he says, finally. “But you already know how you fucked up, so I'm not sure what else there is to say.”

Clarke wipes at her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater. “There isn't anything. I just... I wish I could take it back and I can't. And I have no idea what he's thinking because he doesn't want to talk to me right now which I know I fucking deserve, but I... I hate that I hurt him. I hate that I keep fucking hurting him.”

Wells sighs a big, full body sigh that Clarke knows means he's disappointed in her, but he puts an arm around her shoulders anyway and she leans into him, all familiar, solid, warmth. Wells can't fix this, and it's not his job to anyhow, but this is what she came here looking for, a moment of acceptance, despite her flaws. She's going to hate leaving him, but it's not forever this time. She doesn't know how long she sits there, taking the comfort he's willing to give her and trying to capture every moment she thought they'd never have again.

 

Jasper throws them a going away party that Clarke's not really in the mood for. She doesn't think Bellamy is either, but it's hard to tell when he's clearly avoiding her.

“It's not really for you,” Raven tells her, “Jasper just takes every excuse to throw a party.” Clarke's had a couple of drinks at this point, because if there's one thing the party is good for, it'll be getting drunk enough she forgets what happened with Bellamy. She's parked herself in one of the booths in the back and is steadily working on her third drink. This is where Raven has found her, sliding into the booth across the table, a violently pink drink in one hand.

Clarke acknowledges her by raising her glass.

“Lover's quarrel?” Raven asks bluntly, kicking her legs up under the table and propping her feet on the seat next to Clarke.

“What?”

“You and Bellamy are both mopey as hell.”

Clarke shrugs, “Something like that.” She doesn't really want to talk about it again, and even though she thinks she likes Raven, despite the guilt that lurches in her stomach whenever she sees her, she's not exactly the first person Clarke would want talk to if she did. She's already been there, done that. Now all she wants is a fourth drink.

“Look, I'm only going to say this once, okay? I've seen Blake every couple of months for the past year or so, and I've never seen him look half as happy as the day he walked in here with you. And he might be an asshole, but he's an asshole who'll bend over backwards if he gives a single fuck about you. And with you, well, I doubt there's much he wouldn't do for you.” Raven finishes her drink and sets it down with a decisive clink. “So you'd be pretty stupid to fuck that up.” She stands up, stretching, eyes already on the crowd, their conversation forgotten. Clarke holds her tongue until Raven starts to walk away.

“How do you know it's my fault?” Clarke calls after her.

Raven pauses just past the edge of the table. “Like I said, you're both moping, but he looks sad and you look guilty.” And with that, she's gone.

 

Clarke gets walked back to her room by a slightly less drunk Monty and a fairly sober Wells, but Lincoln is the one who ends up helping her up the stairs. Despite staying at his place, Clarke hasn't had much time to speak to him, and she's a bit too drunk to manage anything but tell him he has very pretty eyes. Bellamy had disappeared from the party sometime before her, though Clarke can't say when, so she isn't surprised to see his shape in their bed. It's the first time she's been alone with him since he caught her reading the letter and if she were sober she might be apprehensive about it, but as it is she flops unceremoniously onto the bed and lets him pretend like he's asleep. She knows he's not, because his breathing is too short and shallow and she can tell his body is tense, wincing whenever he has to swallow, but she can't think of any words to say to him, so maybe it's easier this way. Besides, she thinks as she drifts towards sleep, they'll be in his truck all day tomorrow, he can't run away from a conversation then.

In the morning, the idea of spending all day trapped in Bellamy's truck when he's angry with her is not so appealing. And he _is_ angry with her, she assumes, even though it's not obvious. Bellamy's anger at her isn't loud. It's a quiet storm, contained within his eyes and under his skin and that terrifies her. She wants him to scream at her, wants him to tell her how wrong she was, how badly she fucked up. But he doesn't do any of that. He doesn't even look at her and that is infinitely worse. She could handle the yelling, him lashing out, she'd deserve it, but this... It's like he no longer cares enough to hurt her back. She's become as insubstantial and unimportant as mist. She hopes that's just her projecting.

They pull away from town just after dawn, and Clarke hides behind her hangover for some time, head back against her headrest and eyes closed, but the silence is too loud for her get any sleep. Bellamy doesn't look much better, when she chances a peek in his direction, pale and haggard, with a five o'clock shadow that he hadn't bothered to shave that morning.

“Maybe we should talk about it,” Clarke ventures, when the silence gets to the point that it's pounding in her ears worse than her headache.

“Do you have something to say?” he asks, eyes on the road and voice rough from his sore throat.

“I'm sorry,” Clarke starts quickly, the apology bursting out of her. “I'm so sorry, I know there isn't an excuse for it, it was fucked up. I _know_ , and I... I wish I could make it up to you, but I can't undo it, even though I wish I could.” She'd been watching his face and somewhere in the midst of the apology something had changed, a flicker of emotion he's been suppressing so well. But she doesn't know what that means.

He takes his time before he responds, like he isn't sure if he wants to say whatever it is that's making the muscle in his jaw flicker. “When we get to Charleston, I think...” he trails off, and Clarke feels dread curl in her stomach, because he's not even responding to her words, or at least not directly.

“Well, you're staying for a while, I assume, and I think I should go.”

Every inch of her feels his words, from head to toe, a twisting ache that makes her throat want to close up and her heart stop beating. Or maybe beat in overdrive. It's racing now, like if it slows down it'll come to a halt and she won't be able to get it started again. It's the last thing she wants, but she owes him freedom from her emotional baggage if he wants to take it.

“If that's what you want,” she says, and her voice comes out so quiet.

Bellamy barks out a disbelieving laugh. “What I want? You know damn well that's not what I want,” it's as if a dam has broken and suddenly the anger is there, but it's secondary to the absolute exhaustion and hurt and frustration in his voice. “But this thing, Clarke, what this is to you, that's not what I want either. As far as I can tell, you've wrapped yourself up in me and my shit so that you can pretend your issues aren't real and you don't have to face them. Well, I don't want to be your distraction from reality. That's not fair, not to me or to you.”

“That's not what this is!” Clarke protests, a knee jerk reaction, because how can he really think, that after everything they've been through, her feelings for him are centered around running away?

“I don't think you're being honest with yourself.”

“It's not,” she says again, but softer, because as much as she cannot say it out loud, if she lets herself truly think about it, he's not entirely wrong. That's not all this to her, not by a long shot, but she would be lying, she is lying, trying to claim that Bellamy and his problems hadn't been a welcome distraction from all the things she's been trying to forget about. He must sense the defeat in her voice because he doesn't argue the point.

He just says, “I'm not angry with you.” He clears his throat, pausing to cough into his elbow and it's the last thing that Clarke expected him to say. If he's not angry with her, even after she invaded his privacy on such a personal level, then what exactly is he? And why are they in this place, here, where neither one of them is happy?

“I'm angry that I let this just... happen. I kept thinking it was okay that it was all about me, the focus of our conversations, where we were going and why. I just kept telling myself that you weren't ready to talk about things yet. I didn't want to push you. But I can't keep enabling your avoidance, either. We'd both end up bitter about that in the long run and I won't do it anymore. You have to make a choice, Clarke. Can you let me be there for you the way you are and want to be for me, or not? Because right now, this isn't a relationship, it's a coping mechanism.”

“I-” she doesn't know how to answer that, she wants to say anything, everything, it will take to get him to stay, but he'll never forgive her if that's a lie, it will only delay everything. She doesn't know. She doesn't know if she can do that, even though it feels like she's being torn in two.

“I don't know,” she says, finally, soft, hating it.

He nods, lips in a firm line. “I don't need an answer right now. But soon.” And, well, there's not much else to say, so they fall silent, the heavy mood that's been hanging over them only slightly lifted.

Clarke falls asleep somewhere just before they cross into South Carolina and wakes up to Bellamy coughing. He's got a white knuckled grip on the steering wheel with one hand, the other arm curled up to cough into his elbow. He looks worse than before she went to sleep.

“Bell?”

“I'm okay,” he grits out between coughs, but he doesn't look it. She reaches out a tentative hand and is met with fever hot skin.

“You're not okay.”

“I am,” he insists, but she gets a look at his eyes, which are glassy and pained. Clarke tightens her grip on his arm.

“Bellamy, we should stop.”

He starts to shake his head, but dissolves into another coughing fit before he can properly respond. When he manages to take a full breath, he doesn't answer, but he pulls off at the next exit, so she counts that as a win.

They don't have keys for the Hampton Bellamy pulls up to, so they end up in one of the rooms with the door hanging open. Clarke strips the bed of its sheets, while Bellamy leans against the wall in exhaustion. She tosses the dirty sheets in the corner and makes two quick trips to the truck to pile the bed with blankets and sleeping bags, trying to make it as warm and comfortable in the drafty room as possible. Her third trip is for the first aid kit she keeps up front in the cabin of the truck.

Bellamy's trembling with the chills from the fever by the time Clarke gets him bundled into the bed and she's infinitely glad they pulled over. He never could have driven like this, but the stubborn bastard likely would have tried. He takes terrible care of himself.

“Here,” she brings him a bottle of water, “try to drink some before you sleep.”

He manages a few pained sips, before slumping back into the bed, eyes squeezed shut, but Clarke rouses him again, feeling guilty, in order to take his temperature. It comes out at a 103 and despite the fact that his throat is obviously raw and painful, she holds off on forcing any medicine on him, afraid that anything from their limited supply might bring down his temperature artificially and make it more difficult for her to monitor his illness.

“Try to sleep if you can,” Clarke suggests. She's not sure if Bellamy hears her, but it doesn't matter, his eyes are already closed and he's clutching the blankets around him with shaky hands.

She's worried, of course she's worried about him, but it doesn't become panic until he wakes up, three hour later, with blurry eyes that blink at her with no recognition. He'd come to in a coughing fit, struggling to draw breath, and she'd had to haul him into a sitting position, terrified at the deep rattle that's started in his chest. When he's got enough breath to look at her, his eyes slide right past, focused on something that seems to be at a great distance.

“Bellamy?”

His reaction to her is slow, almost delayed. “Where's O?”

One moment of confusion and then terrible understanding. He's delirious in his fever, too out of it, and he thinks his sister should be here.

“She's not... she couldn't be here,” Clarke says slowly, wanting to be gentle with him.

“No,” he murmurs, eyes glazing further, slipping ever away from her. “She wouldn't be.”

Before she has a chance to form a response he rolls away from her and vomits over the other side of the bed and immediately begins coughing again.

“Shit,” Clarke grabs the water bottle and thermometer off the nightstand and helps ease him back into a sitting position. This time, his temperature is 105. Clarke can't remember everything her mother taught her about being sick, but she knows the vomiting and delirium and rising temperatures are all very bad signs. Bellamy's not just sick. He's dangerously ill.

She gets him to take the highest dose of Advil she can with some difficulty. He's shivering again, muttering about the cold, and with his sore throat, swallowing pills is a task. As soon as he's done he curls in on himself, and it's disturbing to see him like this. He looks small, a word she's never really thought to apply to Bellamy before. He's no giant, but his presence always takes up space, someone you can't help but notice. He projects confidence and power, and right now she wishes more than anything that version of him were here with her. That version of him makes her feel like nothing bad can happen. This version proves that isn't true.

She sinks onto the bed next to him and slides her fingers into his hair, scratching at his scalp the way he likes. Bellamy sighs and shifts a little closer, the tip of his nose brushing against her leg. Clarke focuses on her own breathing, trying to stay calm; it won't help him for her to panic. But, the truth is, Bellamy needs a doctor. Clarke knows it, and if she could bundle him into the truck and get to Charleston, to her mother, she'd do it in a heartbeat, but Clarke's never driven a stick, and she needs Bellamy to be at least conscious enough to give her instructions to even dare try it. Besides, it won't do either of them any good if she crashes his car and strands them both on the side of the road.

“Thanks,” Bellamy's muffled voices wrenches her back to reality. “Sorry about the vomit.”

“Don't worry about it,” Clarke tells him. “Try to sleep.”  
“Can't. Hurts too much.” The painful way he swallows makes it clear what he's referring to. But even so, after a few moments, she thinks he's drifted off. That is, until his eyes blink open, still glassy, and he tilts his head a bit to look at her.

“Who're you?”

Clarke's fingers falter, even as she tries to rationalize her shock. It's just the fever. He thinks Octavia is alive. Who knows what time in his life he's in inside his head. When he gets better, and he _will_ get better, this will pass. It's not like the last time someone looked at her with no recognition.

“Clarke.” It feels so wrong to be introducing herself to him.

“Hhhmm.” His eyes are closed again. “Will you talk to me?”

“About what?” She's trying to ignore what this feels like, like sitting at her father's bedside as he lost every piece of her, of them, and then himself. It's different, a different illness and a different man who means something very different to her. But it's also the same. She could lose him too.

“Anything.” His voice is quieter this time, so exhausted.

And so she tells him.

* * *

 

She can't remember where she starts, earlier than anything he'd ever asked her for, maybe with a memory of the party dresses her mother would stick her in when she was very little, the ones with the crinkly skirts and the buttons up the back. She isn't sure why she tells him about this, or about the cat her neighbors had, a mean old thing who'd scratched her cheek and gotten blood all over her little blue dress. She tells him about meeting Wells when she was five years old, and about her mother's long hours as a doctor, and her father's kindness and his passion for justice.

She talks, sometimes about trivial things, like her ninth birthday party where everything had been Mulan themed and Melanie Carter had told her that Mulan didn't count as a real princess because she never marries royalty and Clarke had pushed her into a mud puddle. She talks about Sterling, the first boy she'd kissed, and Niylah, the first girl.

Clarke tells him about Sunday dinners at the Jaha's and the summers she spent on the golf course at the country club her parents belonged to, proving that sometimes, no matter how much you practice, there are some things you will just always be bad at. She'd met Lexa there when she was 16 and immediately gotten into a disagreement with her while simultaneously trying not to notice how pretty her eyes were. They'd dated for all of two weeks before they'd flamed out, leaving Clarke feeling furious and betrayed and silly for so quickly believing in the word love.

Her voice wavers as she approaches the things that are still raw, but she doesn't stop. She tells him about the fights her parents had when people first started getting sick, and the day she'd come home from school to find out her dad had been quarantined. She talks so long her voice starts to go hoarse, and she doesn't stop there either. She tells him about how she'd skipped her own father's funeral and how Wells had taken her down to the lake where her dad liked to read and they'd skipped stones and pretended nothing was wrong. Abby had been furious.

It's weird talking about losing Wells; because even though she knows he's alive, it doesn't soften the memory. He'd been her anchor after losing her father, when she couldn't even look her mother in the eyes, and then he hadn't been, ripped away from her too.

“After my dad was gone, and after Wells was gone, I just couldn't be there anymore,” Clarke murmurs. She's not even sure if Bellamy is conscious anymore, but now that she's opened those doors inside herself, she can't stop what's spilling out.

“So I took off. I packed up some stuff and I took my Dad's car and I just drove. I didn't go that far, at first. I just couldn't be around home and my mom, but I wasn't really going anywhere, so I just sort of floated around, never too far. I don't even remember the name of the town where I met Finn. Things were still... well, almost functional then. People were still convinced the government would be able to pull together something, get us out of this mess.

“Finn was... optimistic, and bright, and he saw the good that was still in the world and I wanted so badly to buy into that vision. He made things seem less terrible and I just let myself get swept up in it. I thought I'd found someone who could make me think about being happy again and I hadn't felt anything like that since the day my dad got sick. It was just... such a relief to feel that way again.

“So one night, about a week after I met him, I asked him about this necklace he always wore, an origami bird, and Finn tells me his story, about losing his mom and then his girlfriend getting sick. He said they'd been best friends since they were little and they'd been dating for years, and I mean, I never _dated_ Wells, but it was just such a familiar story, it was like he was telling me my own story and he _understood_. He knew all about that, I'd been such a mess when we met and I spilled it almost immediately, so he knew that I got it too. Anyway, he told me he wore the necklace because it made him feel close to her, to Raven, to her memory.”

Clarke feels the anger start to creep up on her, and when she glances down she realizes Bellamy is looking at her, still fuzzy, but definitely awake. “A week later, we bump into these guys at a bar and they know Finn, and they're joking around and telling him he better finish up his scavenging trip because Raven gets so grumpy when she's worried about him. It didn't even compute at first, but then I saw it all on his face, how guilty he was, and he- he fucking _lied_ about his girlfriend dying and what it was like when she got sick and he _knew_ what had happened to me. He used his dead fucking girlfriend to bond with me and get me to sleep with him, when she was alive and waiting for him the whole time.

“I just left, hopped in my car and drove. That's finally when I started heading west. I wanted to put as much distance between myself and _everything_ that I could. About halfway across the country the car broke down and I couldn't find anyone to fix it, so I hung out in a nearby town and at this point things were really going to shit. People were dying left and right, and everything was just collapsing in on itself and money was useless. I stayed put for a while, but then the immunization came out. That was my mom; she was the one who formulated it, from samples and labs she took from _me_ while my dad was sick, because I was exposed to him and I never got sick and there was her natural immunity, right there the whole time, in her daughter. And then that's all anyone wanted to talk about, the vaccine, and how it was saving us all and I couldn't get away from her again.

“So I got some camping equipment and I just started walking. I hitched rides where I could. Eventually I got mugged by these girls; they stabbed me and left me for dead, but they missed everything major. Once I was strong enough again, I found some abandoned stores and replaced what I could, which wasn't a lot and just kept working my way across the country. I was going to keep going until I got to California, but then I sprained my ankle while I was hiking one night when I couldn't sleep and I was ready to take any ride I could get, any direction. And that's when I met you.”

It feels like a lame ending to her story, but it's the truth. It _everything_ , everything she didn't want to say out loud, but now that it's out she feels so much lighter, even if he missed most of it, even if he won't remember. His eyes are closed, his breathing finally even, and she has no idea exactly when he fell asleep, but it doesn't matter. She's said it once, she can say it again, if she has to, if he wants her to.

When Bellamy wakes up the third time, his fever has broken. He kicks off the blankets, grumbling and sweating and coughing and Clarke feels relief so strong her throat closes up.

He knows her this time, if his mumbled, “I don't want any water, Clarke,” is anything to by. She strong arms him into getting another temperature reading. 101, a significant improvement. Once she's sure he's rolled over and gone back to sleep she puts her head down on the bed and cries, deep ugly sobs, because even though he's still sick she's finally sure he's not _dying_. She hadn't let herself entertain the possibility before, not really, but she acknowledges it now that it's gone, and it swamps her. She lies there crying, and for the first time in a long time she feels something uncomplicated- she just wants her mother. 

* * *

 

Bellamy's fever is nearly entirely gone by midday the next day, though it leaves him weak and exhausted. Clarke doesn't like the sound of his cough, either. He's out of any immediate danger, she believes, but she won't rest easy until her mother has cleared him. The thought is such a strange one, because until yesterday she'd practically been dreading her mother and Bellamy meeting each other. Now it can't come soon enough.

They decide to spend a second night in the Hampton, even though it's kind of gross and extremely drafty. Bellamy is too tired to drive and Clarke had volunteered, but he'd laughed so hard it had started another coughing fit.

“I won't need a doctor if you've killed us both,” he'd told her, when he'd finally recovered his breath. “I'll teach you to drive the truck, but not under these circumstances.” The way he said that, like he expects them to stick together long enough for that to be an option makes Clarke's heart lift. He hasn't said anything about the things she'd told him, and she's very unsure how much he remembers, but he must have retained some of it because even in his utter exhaustion Bellamy seems softer again. She hasn't seen his eyes like this since the day he met Wells and realized how little of Clarke's life he really knew.

The next morning they set out for Charleston. They drive slow, not that it matters with little to no traffic on the roads. It would be faster just to turn around and go back- there's probably someone around with the skills to properly check out Bellamy, but it's no guarantee, and as many issues as Clarke has with her mother, she's never doubted her skill. They just have to find her first.

Traffic picks up as they near Charleston, Bellamy gripping the wheel a little more tightly than normal, looking exhausted, but they're nearly there. Wells is right, Charleston seems more pulled together than the other cities Clarke has travelled through. It's still a far cry from the city of her childhood, but there are cars on the road and people on the sidewalks and the hum of electricity. It should feel empty, in comparison to what she's been used to, but instead it feels full, after spending so much time in isolation.

She directs Bellamy to her childhood home. She knows it's possible that her mother won't be there. It's a big house, which Abby wouldn't need on her own, and it's not in the heart of the downtown, where she's sure it would be more convenient and safer to be, but it was their home.

The weirdest part is that it looks pretty much the same. The yard is no longer perfectly manicured, and the flower beds are wild, but other than that, it looks the same. Except there around about ten cars parked in the driveway. Bellamy pulls up as closely to the front door as he can, looking at Clarke for direction.

“We should go in. See what's going on.” She doesn't know what else to do. She doesn't know why there are so many people here, but her mother's Mercedes is parked by the front door, so she suspects that Abby has something to do with it.

The inside of the house is different. Someone had dragged her father's desk from his office and plunked it right in the middle of the foyer, impossible to miss the moment you step inside. There's a woman sitting behind the desk, and she's flanked by two men with guns, who appear to be some sort of guard. Other furniture, chairs, a garden bench, seating Clarke recognizes from the back patio, is scattered around the space with people sprawled across them in various states of illness or pain. It's been converted into a waiting room, Clarke realizes, and she's fairly positive she knows who they're waiting for.

She approaches the desk, Bellamy trailing. He's a little unsteady on his feet and Clarke's tempted to send him to one of the chairs, but she doesn't intend to be left waiting.

“We're here to see Abby Griffin,” she tells the woman at the desk. Clarke doesn't recognize her, and she wonders how she ended up here.

“She's booked up for the day. You can sit on standby if you want. Or I can make you an appointment for tomorrow.”

“That won't be necessary.” Clarke hasn't played the entitled princess role in a long time, but she still remembers how this goes. At least this time it's for someone she cares about. “Just tell her that her daughter is here. We'll be in the library.”

She doesn't look back to see if either of the guards move to try to stop them, she just grasps Bellamy by the hand and marches around the desk and past the staircase that leads up to the bedrooms to a door off the hallway that leads to the library. It's really more of study than anything else, a room with big bay windows and cozy armchairs and shelf after shelf of books. Clarke's father had cultivated it carefully over the years, meticulously adding to and pruning his collection. It's dusty inside, but it smells like aged pages and her father's cologne and Clarke is hit by a wave of nostalgia and sorrow at the way the sunlight slants through the windows, just like always.

“Here, sit down,” she directs Bellamy into a big armchair that will keep him propped up, but allow him to rest.

Clarke drifts to the shelves, runs her fingers over the spines of the books like she would when she was a little kid. There's a lopsided red vase on one of the shelves; it's ugly as ever, but Wells had made it in art class when he was seven and proudly gifted it to her father for his birthday. Clarke's father had loved it, and it had sat on proud display ever since. It's already overwhelming being here with the memories of the dead, she's not sure how she's going to handle the living.

They only wait for maybe ten minutes, Clarke perched on the arm of Bellamy's chair, him dozing slightly, when the door swings open. She half hopes it's the guards come to drag them back out of the house. It isn't.

Abby Griffin looks more tired than Clarke remembers. She's a little too thin, and there are unmistakable dark circles under her eyes, but her gaze is as sharp as ever when it lands on Clarke. She takes two, seemingly unthinking, steps forward, but then stops, eyes sliding to Bellamy, who hasn't woken. Whatever she wants to say, Clarke imagines it isn't,

“what's wrong with him?” As many problems as there are between Clarke and her mother, in that moment she's grateful.

“It started like a normal cold,” Clarke tells her, voice low. It's a relief to have Bellamy to focus on, a buffer between them, “but on the way here he spiked a fever of 105 and it wouldn't come down. He was delusional and vomiting for a few hours. He's been better today, but his lungs don't sound good.” Clarke shrugs helplessly, trying not to tear up. It's still terrifying, thinking about how close she'd come to losing him.

Abby nods, all business. “I'll go get my travel bag so we don't have to move him to an exam room. Wake him up while I'm gone, I want to talk to him.”

She's gone before Clarke has time to blink, slipping out of the door as quietly as she came. Bellamy wakes blearily when Clarke touches his shoulder, and for a second she's terrified that his unfocused eyes are back to not recognizing her.

“What happened?” he asks.

“My mom wants you awake for your exam.”

“She's been here?” His expression shifts from sleepy to worried in the blink of an eye. She's touched by his concern, but he's provided more shelter from her mother, even asleep, than he realizes.

“Only for a moment.”

Abby returns with a bulky travel bag and gets right down to business, politely asking Bellamy his name and then for permission to listen to his lungs, take his temperature, and run a gambit of other tests. She even takes a couple of vials of blood.

“Seems like you have pneumonia,” she tells him. Abby has carefully not addressed Clarke while dealing with Bellamy, perfectly professional at all times. “Based on what you've told me, I'd guess it's viral, a result of a bad bout of the flu, but I'm going to run some tests on your blood to make sure it isn't bacterial and you don't need any antibiotics. In the meantime, you need to get a lot of rest and I'm going to put you on Ribavirin to be on the safe side, since I don't have the ability to get you a chest x-ray to be completely sure it's turned into full on pneumonia.

“I recommend avoiding straining yourself until this clears up.” For the first time her eyes flick back to where Clarke is hovering, anxious but trying to give her mother space to work. “You're obviously welcome here, if you need a place to stay.”

Clarke swallows the lump in her throat. They'll be taking her up on the offer, and it'll be the best place for Bellamy, where he can have quick access to medical care if he needs it, but there's still some part of her that wants to reject it.

“Thank you,” Bellamy croaks out, breaking the tension with a tired smile.

“I'll show you upstairs,” Clarke offers, ready to escape the room and the library that is slowly becoming claustrophobic to her, as the air fills with all the things no one is willing to say.

She and Bellamy are almost to the door when Abby speaks up again. “Clarke.”

They pause in the doorway, and Clarke feels Bellamy's fingers tighten on the hand he's holding, reassuring even in this state.

“Can we talk later?” Abby asks, voice steady, but with the smallest edge of insecurity. Part of her wants so badly to say no, she'd really rather not, but she pictures the face Wells would make if he were standing here, and she thinks back to two nights ago, lying in bed, not knowing if Bellamy would live through the night. She takes a deep breath.

“After we've settled in.”

“Of course.” Abby stands up, her doctor cool perfectly in place. “I should see to my other patients.”

* * *

 

Clarke puts Bellamy in one of the guest rooms, in part because she's got enough things to worry about with her mother without feeling obligated to immediately explain her relationship with Bellamy, and in part because she can't remember if she ever took down her poster of Harry Styles and she's pretty sure Bellamy would have something smart to say about it.

It's clear the drive and subsequent doctor's appointment has worn him out, so they don't talk much after Clarke tucks him into the big king sized bed and makes a couple trips to the truck to bring in some of their things. The guards in the foyer eye her suspiciously, but don't make any move to stop her.

Clarke doesn't realize how tired she is until she wakes up lying next to Bellamy, still on top of the covers, and her mother is standing in the doorway.

“I brought the anti-virals,” Abby says, and Clarke knows her careful composure is masking a whole riot of feelings underneath, but she tries to appreciate that she's trying.

“Thanks.” She doesn't know what else to say. There are a lot of things they should talk about, at some point, but Clarke has no idea where to start.

“Would now be a good time to talk?” her mother asks, eying Bellamy's sleeping form. “We can go somewhere else.”

Clarke is reluctant to leave Bellamy, and reluctant to put herself in a position where she's truly alone with her mother. She's not sure she's ready for that yet, so she props herself up on the bed.

“He's exhausted, he'll sleep through some talking.”

Abby hesitates, then takes a seat in the soft reading chair by the window. She seems to be debating her options. Clarke tries not to think of it as forming a plan of attack. She and her mother had been close once, but they'd never had the easy understanding of Clarke and her father. They had to work for it, and now, with all that's between them, it's hard to remember how.

“Besides... this,” Abby gestures at Bellamy, “You've been alright? Safe?”

“For the most part.” Clarke can feel herself clamming up. She doesn't like to share what can hurt her, particularly once she's already been burned by someone. She knows causing her pain isn't her mother's intent, but she doesn't know how to trust that she won't do it if she's thinks it's best, because she _has_ before.

“And you're here...” The question is implied.

“For awhile. At least until Bellamy's better.” Clarke looks down at her hands, takes a leap. “We came because Wells said I should.”

“You've seen Wells?” Abby's voice betrays her shock. “How is he?”

Clarke nods. “He's fine. _Alive_ , for one.” She looks up in time to see her mother flinch at the venom in her voice. She feels a little kernel of satisfaction, because how could her own mother do that, let her believe her best friend was dead?

“I don't know what you want me to say, Clarke.” Abby's got her chin up, unwilling to let her daughter unnerve her. “I'm your mother, I'm not perfect. I always did what I thought was best, but that doesn't mean I was _right_. We should have told you about Wells, Thelonious and I. We were wrong, I know that. Hindsight is 20/20, isn't that the saying? I'm sorry that I made wrong decisions that hurt you. But I can't take them back, just like I can't take back my decision not to work on an immunization in time to save your father. Do you think I don't think about all the things I should have done differently? Do you think I don't care? I did my best, Clarke. Maybe it wasn't good enough, I don't know. I don't even know how to measure “good enough” anymore. But I'm still trying, and that's all I can do.”

Clarke doesn't have anything to say to that, because she already knows, really, that her mother isn't malicious or even a bad person, she'd just hurt Clarke. She looks away, lips pressed into a frown. She does want to fix this, someday, somehow, but she's still so angry.

“I don't want to be so mad at you,” Clarke manages, finally, looking at Bellamy instead of her mom. He looks peaceful in his sleep for the first time in days. It eases something in her chest.

“I don't want that, but I am. And I don't know how to change it.”

Abby stands up, and the movement draws Clarke's eyes. She doesn't look upset, like she thought she might, only thoughtful. She offers her daughter a small smile. “I don't know either, but you're here, so I guess that's a start.”

Bellamy stirs, his eyes blinking open, and Clarke leans over him, putting a hand on his cheek. His skin is back to a normal temperature and no longer clammy.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” she asks, as his eyes focus slowly on her.

“Fantastic,” he rasps, managing a small smile. His eyelids are already starting to droop again.

“You're going to be okay, Bell,” she murmurs, more to remind herself than him. They made it here, his fever is gone, her mother knows what to do.

“I know,” he says, his eyes sliding past her and focusing momentarily on her mother, before coming back to her face. “Are you?”

And Clarke nearly laughs because of course even in this state Bellamy is thinking about someone else.

“Yeah, everything is going to be okay.” She traces a path across his cheekbone with her thumb and his eyes slide closed, humming lowly in the back of his throat.

“Good,” he breathes, “that's good,” just before he falls back asleep.

Abby had been standing quietly in the background during their conversation, and after a breath where Clarke thinks she might have something else to say, she slips out of the room, the conversation clearly postponed. Clarke's shoulders relax when the door closes behind her, leaving her alone with Bellamy. For a minute, she thinks about the cabin, how blissful and peaceful and easy that was. But this is better, she thinks, even though it's not perfect, better because even though she's not all the way there, she's opened the doors that she shoved all her fear and sadness and anger behind, and he's seen what's on the other side. It's better because as hard as it is, Clarke feels like, for the first time since she packed up her father's car and took to the road, she's moving forward, and not just away.

* * *

 

It takes Bellamy a full week to start to get back to normal. Clarke splits her time between tentative conversations with her mother and hiding in Bellamy's room. He's been consuming her father's book collection at an alarming rate, even though he complains about half of the things he reads.

“Why do you keep reading Hemingway if you know you hate Hemingway?” Clarke asks, not for the first time. He's been cooped up, there's only so many conversations to have about the same handful of books.

“For more evidence as to why everyone should hate Hemingway.”

“Yes, I know, Bellamy. He was a misogynistic drunk who wrote boring books. You're missing the part where I'm not disagreeing with you.”

He swats lightly at where her feet are propped up in his lap as she lounges in the chair next his bed with _The Sun Also Rises._ “You're my test argument.”

Clarke snorts. “Who exactly are you planning to argue with?”

“Miller. He has shit taste in literature.”

“I thought he was into Shakespeare. I don't think most people consider Shakespeare to be shit.” Clarke didn't really get to know Miller all that well during their short stay. He wasn't the most talkative, but he'd started reciting sonnets when he'd gotten drunk, and that's not really the sort of thing you forget about someone.

Bellamy scoffs, but doesn't have a chance to answer before there's a knock at the door. That'll be Abby, knocking to let them know it's time for dinner. Clarke supposes it's nice that she's respecting their privacy, but it's not like Bellamy's exactly been healthy enough to put them in any sort of compromising position. He's only just stopped sounding like he's going to hack up a lung every time he exerts any sort of physical energy. It hadn't stopped the inevitably awkward conversation she'd had with her mother two days after they'd arrived, when Clarke had volunteered to help her clean up after the patients had gone home for the day, a gesture of goodwill.

 

“Are you sleeping with him?” Abby had asked bluntly, not even looking up from the makeshift examine table she was wiping down.

“What?” Clarke had been so caught off guard, the sentence hadn't even computed. How had they gone from bloody bandages to this?

“Bellamy,” her mother clarified, like that was the part that needed clarification.

“Not at the moment, he's a little ill,” Clarke snapped back, a reflex from years of feeling judged. Even when she and her mother had been on good terms, little things like this had rubbed her the wrong way.

“It's not a...” Abby sighed and put down her rag, looking up. “I'm not trying to control your actions, Clarke. I just want to make sure you're being smart about it. Do you know how many babies I've delivered since the hospitals shut down? I don't think you want that any time soon.”

“We've got it covered, okay?” This was not a conversation she particularly wanted to have with her mother, but Abby had never really beat around the bush about anything.

“Okay,” and Abby had gone back to cleaning the table.

 

Bellamy's voice breaks through Clarke's thoughts. “Have you talked to her?”

“You ask me that everyday.”

He squeezes her ankle. “And you still haven't done it.”

“It's... complicated.” The thing is, Clarke isn't sure what there _is_ to talk about. What sort of exchange are they supposed to have to make things better? If he knows, she'd love to hear it. But she knows it doesn't work like that. Clarke can't just stop feeling betrayed and hurt and Abby can't just go back and change what happened.

“But it's what we came here for.” Bellamy's voice is carefully neutral, but she knows how he feels about it. He didn't get a chance to try to fix things between him and Octavia, even if they could only be fixed by her, even if it wouldn't have worked. He'd want to try.

“I miss my dad,” she admits, quiet. She knows Bellamy doesn't remember everything she'd told him while he was sick, but he remembers some, he remembers enough to understand that the act of telling itself was the important thing. He's inside the walls she's worked so hard to keep up, so no one can even get a glimpse. He treads lightly there.

“Do you ever think... she probably does too?”

Clarke sucks in a breath and tries to calm the stinging behind her eyes. She doesn't want to think of it like that. It hurts too much. Her mother loved her father, she knows that, but it's harder to think about. If she hadn't loved him, Clarke could just hate her for it.

“We should get down to dinner,” Clarke says, instead of responding, and swings her feet off his bed. He doesn't push, and she's grateful. She's not ready. Not yet.

* * *

 

She walks in on her mother kissing a man in her office just after dinner two days later and nearly smashes into the doorframe, she's backpedaling so quickly.

“Clarke!” Abby calls after her, but she doesn't stop, not until she's in her father's library, curled into one of the armchairs that still smells like him. It doesn't take long for her mother to find her.

“I don't want to talk to you,” Clarke tells her, the moment she steps into the room.

“Then you don't have to say anything,” Abby says as she steps further into the room, closing the door behind her with a click. She takes the seat across from Clarke's, slow, deliberate.

“His name is Marcus.”

“I don't want to know about him.” All Clarke can think of his her father, her father who loved the world so much, who had laugh lines at the corners of his eyes, who always knew exactly what to say to her. She misses him so much and it hurts, a terrible hole in the middle of her chest.

“He's not a replacement, Clarke.”

“Are you sure about that?” she spits out, acidly.

“Yes.” Abby seems calm, sad. And what right does she have to be sad when she's the reason Clarke's father is dead in the first place? He's dead and she's just gone and found herself someone else, like he never even existed.

“I loved your father, Clarke, but he's not here anymore. He's not here and I hate myself every single day for not being able to save him, but I didn't, I couldn't, and he wouldn't want me or you to sit around here not living our lives because he can't be here to live them with us.”

“You think he'd want this?” Clarke snaps, gesturing in her mother's direction. She can't look at her, she _can't_.

Abby sighs. “I think he'd want us both to be happy, whatever that means. Do _you_ really think he'd want me to mourn him forever?”

“It's barely been a year!” But she can't say yes, because her father was too good, forgave too easily, loved too deeply. She can't say yes, because she knows it's a lie. She can't say yes, even though she desperately wants to, because it's what Clarke wants from her mother.

“And look at everything that's changed. The world's moving on all around you Clarke, whether or not you're moving with it. I'm trying, and Marcus makes it easier to get up the next day and try again. And your father does too, Clarke, because that's what he'd want from me, to keep trying, to keep helping the people I can help. I haven't forgotten him. I'm living every single day trying to be that person I know he would want me to be, that person he challenged me to be. When someone you love dies, the best thing you can do for them is to honor their memory, not get lost in it.”

She wants to yell at her. She wants to rage. She wants to cry because it feels like she's the only person in the world who feels the full tragedy and weight of her father not being there anymore, at him just being gone, and all the pieces of him slipping further and further away.

Clarke opens her mouth to tell her mother exactly that, and her eyes catch on Wells' vase, still as violently red and ugly as ever, one side drooping. And suddenly she's back in the shop with him, his hand on her knee and her own words hanging in the air _'_ s _he deserves to love someone again.'_ She'd been talking about Raven, and this is not that, this is nothing like that, but the memory dries up all the words she wants to say. It's not the same thing, that's what her heart tells her, but it _is_ , the logical part of her brain insists. She doesn't want it to be the same, if it's the same she can't condemn her mother for it. If it's the same, it's a _good_ thing.

Clarke feels all the conflicting emotion swelling up in her chest, and by the time the first sob breaks free, Abby has moved from her chair and wrapped her slender arms around her daughter. Clarke collapses against her, just gives in and lets the emotion drag her under. She doesn't know exactly what she's feeling- sadness and betrayal and anger and understanding and hope and fear all at once. It's so much, too much, and Clarke does the only thing that seems to relieve it at all- she curls into her mother's arms and cries.

 

She crawls into Bellamy's bed that night. They've been sleeping separately, mostly because he's had night sweats as he recovers, and it's not a pleasant thing for either of them to wake up to and Clarke's additional body heat hadn't helped.

He wakes up groggy, but perks up quickly, seeming to sense her distress. “What's wrong?”

“My-” her voice wavers. “I walked in on my mom and her boyfriend earlier.”

His fingers brush her cheek a whisper of a touch in the dark, and Clarke tries to turn her head away, so he won't feel the tears that have barely dried on her cheeks, but he catches them anyway.

“It's okay to be upset about it,” he murmurs, thumb now sliding down, across her cheek, and then back up.

Clarke clenches her jaw to try to stop a new wave of tears, but one slips out anyway, trailing down her cheek. She hates how small, how helpless, it makes her feel. She's done too much crying lately. Bellamy wipes it away, gentle.

“Clarke,” his voice is a low rumble next to her, steady, “crying doesn't mean someone is weak. It means they care.” She doesn't know how he does that, seem to read her mind. Say the right thing.

“It doesn't change anything,” she whispers.

“Not physically.”

Clarke closes her eyes, lets herself focus on his fingers against her skin. She thinks she can almost hear his heartbeat in the quiet, and that thought is comforting.

“I told Wells that Raven deserves to be happy again, to love someone again.”

He's quick on the uptake. “And your mom is. Does.”

“I know it's basically the same, but it doesn't _feel_ that way.”

Bellamy is quiet for long enough that Clarke starts to wonder if he's gone to sleep. When he speaks, his voice has gone very solemn, a little sad.

“My mom... She did a lot of stuff that hurt me when I was a kid. She always preferred Octavia, and I- It always made me feel like if I was just better, if I made Octavia happier, if I did everything exactly how she wanted it, things would be different, _she_ would be different. And she never was. I was mad at her for a long time. She fucked up a lot and I was so mad at her for it.

“And when things with Octavia started going to shit, she'd have these flashes where she reminded me _so much_ of our mother, I just... I hated her. I hated that she made the decisions she did and that she left me to take care of a kid that I didn't know how to take care of and that she'd gone and died. She wasn't a great mom, that's just how it was, but then I found some letters she'd written to my dad while he was in the army. I read them and it was the first time I realized my mom wasn't just my mom. She was a person, her own incredibly fucked up and sometimes selfish person. I'd never really seen her that way before.

“It didn't make up for everything she'd done. It didn't just take away the pain she'd caused us or the fact that she wasn't really cut out to be a mom, but it helped _me_ , to realize that. She was a person outside of who she was to me, and your mom is too. She's your mom, but she's a lot more than that, more than the way you see her.”

Like always, it's hard to accept that he has a point. Clarke's never interacted with her mother as just a _person,_ never thought of her that way, never really acknowledged that Abby deserves to be as flawed as everyone else in the world. She's always been Clarke's _mom_ , this unstoppable force who can do anything if she wants to. That could've saved Clarke's dad.

Only maybe she couldn't have. Maybe it wouldn't have changed anything in the long run. Maybe by the time she'd developed the immunization, it would have been too late. There's no way to know that, and there never will be.

“I don't know what I feel,” Clarke admits, finally. “Tired, mostly.”

Bellamy huffs out a laugh. “That makes two of us then.” He's right, it's the two of them, together in this, in trying to figure out how to live in this fucked up, challenging world. It makes her brave enough to voice something that haunts her.

“Do you think I'll ever stop feeling like she betrayed him?”

“I don't know,” his voice is honest, thoughtful. “But is that the most important part? Maybe it's not about what she did before, but what she does now.”

Clarke hopes, desperately, that he's right.

* * *

 

It gets better after that, slowly, and not entirely, but better. Clarke still feels anger, sometimes, when her mother laughs at something Marcus says, or when she sees their hands clasped together. She still hurts for her father, for his memory, for what they've lost, but it starts to not feel so sharp, not so soul crushing. Sometimes, when her mother laughs, Clarke just feels happy, too.

The fact that Marcus and Bellamy get along probably helps things. They'd been a bit unsure of each other at first, stand offish, but that had seemed to melt away over the days, and now they're thick as thieves. Clarke isn't really sure what they have in common, since they spend half their time debating politics that don't even exist anymore, but there seems to be an understanding there, somewhere.

As for her, Clarke has taken to helping Abby with the patients who flood in daily. Abby had asked her to, and Bellamy had managed to convince her after a couple of days of nagging. She's nowhere close to qualified to deal with some of the things that come in, but she mostly hangs out in the exam room and fetches things her mother needs. It's not exactly something she wants to do long term, but she thinks it's been good for her. For them.

She can't stop being struck with Bellamy's words, about her mother just being a person, a person outside of being her mom. She feels foolish, when it's stated in that manner, that it's not something she'd ever really considered for herself. Of _course_ her mother's a person, but growing up she'd been this amazing, powerful, intimidating, infuriating force in Clarke's life. And as much as she'd chafed against it, what Abby thought had always mattered to her deeply. It was why disappointing her had been so painful, had made Clarke feel so worthless and angry.

It was why when her mother disappointed _her_ it had felt like such a betrayal. She was Clarke's _mom_ , she was supposed to be better than that. Only she wasn't. She was just like everyone else. Clarke's still struggling with that, but she sees it now, more clearly every day. And she sees how Abby's trying, like she said, to be who Clarke's father had always believed her to be. She runs herself ragged with her makeshift clinic, works obscene hours, and not for money. People bring her things, gifts and food, things to trade, but Abby doesn't turn anyone away. Not unless there's simply nothing she can do. Jake Griffin would be proud.

By the time they've been in Charleston a month and half, Clarke can tell Bellamy's growing more and more restless each day. He's read nearly every book in the house, and he spends most of his days doing whatever odd jobs Marcus directs him to. It's not a life for him. And while Clarke might be starting to heal, made it a few steps down that path, at least, Bellamy is still looking to run just as much as the day she met him. He's better, lighter, but he's not ready to stop.

She knows the only reason he hasn't gone yet is because he doesn't think she'll want to go with him and he doesn't want to leave her behind. He's gotten to used to sacrificing his wants and needs for other people over the years. But this time, God, this time Clarke doesn't think there's a sacrifice that needs to be made. She's ready now.

Bellamy is in the library when she finds him, pulling books off the shelves at random and then returning them almost as quickly. Restless.

“Bell.” He hadn't noticed her come in and he startles at the sound of her voice.

“Hey.” His smile is strained at the edges. It has been for days. She'd noticed when it started and begun preparing to leave then. She walks to him and takes his hands in hers.

“It's time to go, isn't it?”

He blinks at her. “What?”

“You don't want to be here anymore. I don't think my mom or Marcus have noticed, but it's... I see it.”

Something cracks in his eyes, a flood of emotions he's been keeping hidden surging to the surface. “I'm not ready to stay in one place,” he admits, sounding frustrated with himself. “I want to be, but it just... feels like something is catching up.”

 _Maybe it should_ , Clarke thinks for just a moment. But that's not for her to decide. He has to get there on his own, just like she did.

“It's okay, Bell. I'm ready to go when you are.”

He shakes his head. “But you shouldn't be. God, things are just starting to work out with your mom. You've got your best friend back just a few hours away, and you've got your mom back. You have a place you can belong again. It's good for you, to be here.”

Clarke takes a step closer, so close she has to tilt her head up to look at him. “It's good,” she confirms.

“Things for me are so much better, and I'm so lucky, but it's not like I don't know where to find this. There's a place here, to come back to, and in North Carolina. And things with my mom... I think that's going to be a work in progress for a long, long time. I don't have to spend every second with her. Trust me, that's bound to do more harm than good.” She squeezes his hands, and he's looking at her tentatively, like he's not sure he should believe her words.

“I want to get to spend time with all of them again. But you came here for me, because I needed it, and now you need to go. I want to go too. Remember what you said to me? About how we have to be there for each other, how it can't just be one sided? You've done your part for a while, now it's my turn.”

Bellamy just looks at her, his expression vulnerable and hopeful and disbelieving. “I have no idea when I'll be able to stop running,” is all he says.

Clarke squeezes his hands again. “That's okay. We'll figure it out together. Whenever you're ready.”

* * *

 

They leave the next morning, early. Clarke hugs her mother goodbye. She doesn't even feel guilty when she thinks about how she'll miss her. It's progress. Slow and steady. They'll be back, maybe even soon.

It's not until they're an hour out of town that Clarke reaches into her pocket and finds her father's old watch. It was a possession he'd loved, but Clarke had thought it long since destroyed. He'd been wearing it when he got sick, and patients who contracted the illness had been quarantined and had all their things taken from them and burned. Her mother must have saved it. Her mother must have had it all this time, and slipped it into Clarke's pocket while they were saying goodbye.

She cups it in her hands and stares at the familiar watch face, tears welling up in her eyes. She hasn't had anything to remember him by, no keepsake, nothing that meant anything. This watch was his favorite possession in the world. It's not lost on her what it must have taken for her mother to give it up.

“It was my dad's,” she explains tearfully at Bellamy's questioning glance. She puts it on. It's clunky and large and looks ridiculous and she loves it. It feels like finally getting a piece of someone back.

 

It's different, driving, this time. It doesn't feel like an aimless meander anymore. Bellamy never says where they're going, but the first place they stop for anything more than rest is the apartment complex where Octavia had lived in college. He tells her this, sitting on a bench across the street, and staring at the brick building looming above them. It's abandoned, and the windows look blank, disturbingly empty. He tells her the story of dropping her off here, when their relationship was so broken she hadn't even said goodbye to him.

Later, it's a crappy motel in Texas, where their mother had brought them on “vacation,” which really meant that she'd had a boyfriend she'd met online who lived nearby and had paid for her to come out and visit him. Bellamy and Octavia had spent most of the trip in the motel room.

Then it's Arizona, where they'd spent a summer with their mother's cousin, when she was in rehab and couldn't take care of them. They weave their way west and north, slowly, but steadily. He teaches Clarke to drive stick in Nevada, on the same stretch of road where they met, and tells her all about trying to teach Octavia, who was fearless, but impatient and stalled over and over and grew increasingly furious as she did so.

He tells her he loves her that night, their fingers linked together in the dark. And Clarke finds she knew this, but hearing it still makes her heart lift. She returns the words with a kiss to the back of his hand, and they lie there, linked by their beating hearts.

They end up in Northern California. Bellamy had never told Clarke specifically where he and Octavia grew up, but he takes her there now, a trailer that's practically caving in these days. She's not sure it looked much better when they lived there, based on Bellamy's stories.

They sit outside on the grass in the late afternoon sunshine and Bellamy takes Octavia's letter out of his pocket and turns it over in his hands.

“She left this, and she disappeared. She was so sick, I have no idea where she went. I looked, but I never found her.” He holds the letter like it might bite him. “I've never read it.”

The admission hits Clarke in the chest. It explains so much, the look in his eyes when he'd caught her with it, the depth of his reaction after. It's not just private; it's something he hasn't even been able to face. She feels a fresh wave of guilt for having read it herself.

“Why?” she asks, tentatively.

“Because what if I read it and I still can't forgive her? If I haven't read it, there's always a chance she said she was sorry.” Bellamy is staring hard at the paper between his fingers. He has the answers right there, but he won't look.

Clarke thinks about what Octavia wrote in that letter. It's not an apology. But it's... It's Octavia trying to give him something, even when it's not what's best for her, and that's something Clarke isn't sure Octavia had ever done before. But it isn't her place to tell him. So instead she just takes his hand and laces their fingers together and sits there with him until he's ready to go somewhere else.

She doesn't know exactly what this is to Bellamy, this tour of all the places that had meant something to his relationship with his sister, but whatever it is, she thinks it's helping. He seems just a little lighter each day, a little less burdened, and Clarke finds herself looking at him and holding her breath that it will last. He deserves this. He deserves to be free from this past.

It's two weeks later on the coast of Oregon that he looks, for the first time ever to Clarke, truly at peace. It's a stony beach, and windy, and they'd built a big fire so they could stand to sit in the cold air and watch the water.

“Mom brought us here, just once.” He's got Octavia's letter between his fingers, like he always does when he talks about her these days, an almost. Clarke leans back against the big rock behind her and closes her eyes, basks in the warmth from the fire and his voice.

“It was the happiest I ever saw O. She loved the ocean and the rocks and that she could just run and run. She was only... four or five, I think. But God, she was just vibrant. It was the only time in my life I think I saw her just absolutely bursting with joy. It was the only time growing up that I remember feeling that way too.”

He falls quiet for long enough that Clarke opens her eyes, and when she does he's got the letter unfolded and pressed to his knee, eyes sliding over it slowly. Clarke's breath catches in her throat. She wasn't sure she'd ever see this day. She sort of expects him to cry, but he doesn't. He reads through several times, or she assumes so, because he's looking at it for what feels like endless minutes. When he's done he folds it back up and slips it back into his pocket.

“Why'd you finally read it?” Clarke asks, when she can't stand it any longer.

He looks up at her, and his face is so soft, so at ease. “Because it stopped feeling like it would make a difference.”

Clarke doesn't understand what he means by that, not really, but she feels elation at the contented edge to his voice. He senses her confusion.

“Octavia wasn't a perfect person, maybe not even a good person, but she was my sister and I loved her. I always will. And... I don't know if I'll ever forgive her, but I forgive myself. I think... It finally feels like... What Octavia did, the choices and mistakes she made, those weren't my fault.”

He takes her letter back out of his pocket. Clarke thinks this must be what it looks like to have an epiphany, and it's not excitement or joy, it's just acceptance.

Bellamy nods, to himself, and then he casts the letter into the fire. Clarke must make some noise, some expression of shock as it catches alight, the edges curling first and then the whole thing flaring and starting to fall away, because he looks up at her then, and he doesn't look upset. He looks so peaceful.

“She's gone,” he says, soft. “She's been gone a long time, and now _I_ have to let her go.”

Clarke isn't sure why she's the one crying, except she's happy, and stunned, and proud. And God, this has been such a long road and right now she feels like she's standing at the end of it. Like something is fundamentally different than it's ever been.

“You ready to go home?” Bellamy asks, and his grin is blinding in the darkness. Clarke clambers to her feet so she can go to him, press herself into his side and bury her face in his neck when she hugs him.

He's her home, she thinks, but what she says is, “Maybe this time we can stay awhile.”

* * *

 

They leave the beach early in the morning, just like Bellamy likes, when the sky is streaked with orange and pink and softened with big fluffy clouds.

Clarke's in the passenger seat, feet up on his dash, even though he hates when she does that, and the world that has for so many days felt like some sort of nightmare has a dreamlike quality she never wants to let go.

They drive into the sunrise, headed East. It feels like driving into color, into life, into anything. _I need you to find a way to be happy again_ , Octavia's letter had said. Clarke's not sure Octavia deserves to be making any demands of him, but it doesn't matter, because _Bellamy_ deserves to be happy. And today, when she glances at him behind the steering wheel, leaned back in his seat, shoulders relaxed and eyes lit up, the road open and sprawling and full of possibilities before them, she thinks he just might be.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well- that took longer than I expected. It's also about twice the word count I expected, though, so I hope that makes up for the wait! when I originally started writing this fic, I planned it to be a oneshot around 5k. obviously that's not what it turned out to be at all, but I think it's better for it. 
> 
> in other news, I just want to address the issue of Home. so, for anyone wondering, it's not abandoned, but I am having a lot of trouble with it. It takes a lot of emotional and mental energy for me to write, and the year since I updated has just been a really hard one for me. so I honestly can't say when I think the next update will be. I do absolutely plan to continue it, but at a pace that doesn't add stress to my life. I apologize for the inconvenience, and thanks so much to anyone who has been supporting that fic, it means a lot!
> 
> p.s. special thanks to my saltmate, paige, for reading over this and catching a buttload of mistakes for me. ily!

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, 
> 
> So first of all I just really want to say I know it's been a long time, so if you're a returning reader of mine, hi and I hope you're doing well! Also, since I'm here, I'd like to assure anyone who's wondering that I am still working on Home, it has not been abandoned, it's just been a bit more demanding of me than my other fics and I've had a harder time really sinking back into that universe recently. I'm moving in a few weeks (again) and once I'm settled I'm hoping that I'll have a little bit of pressure taken off of me and that might free up some creativity in my brain, but I don't want to promise anything. 
> 
> Now, as for this fic, this is something I have had sitting in pieces in my documents folder for months and for some reason it's just been the story speaking to me the most recently. It was originally supposed to be a oneshot (of course because I pretty much always start thinking that) and after a while I decided it would be best divided into 3 pieces. Let me know what you think! <3
> 
>  
> 
> [song inspiration!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwS0FAjVDh0)  
>  
> 
> [also come hang out with me on tumblr!](http://grumpybell.tumblr.com/)


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